On Fri, 15 Jan 2010 20:40:10 GMT, Ronald Raygun
wrote:

Peter Saxton wrote:

On Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:21:11 GMT, Ronald Raygun
wrote:

Peter Saxton wrote:

Filing accounting records in date order is madness.

It is more usual to keep them in the order of transaction numbers
allocated sequentially by your bookkeeping system when you make the
entries. Typically though, you would make the entries in such an
order that the order of numbers will be roughly in date order.

In the modern world documents are more usually filed in alphabetical
order of supplier. This is more efficient for most queries.

It may be efficient for random queries, but I'd think such queries
are so rare that there is little to be gained by striving for this
particular flavour of efficiency, particularly in the "modern world"
where there is likely to be a computerised system which can be searched
on supplier name, date, invoice numbers, etc, and which can then give
you the document sequence number under which to find the paper
document.

The reason I think it more important to sort by transaction number
is that in an audit every document will need to be viewed, and it's
surely more efficient to go through the document file in the same
order as the transactions appear in the accounts.

I think you've been influenced by the current trend to not deal with a
problem quickly because it's too much effort. If somebody phones me
with a question I deal with it in a few seconds. When I deal with any
organisation it takes them weeks to come up with an answer and it's
still wrong.

In any case it should be simple to search through your system and
look up all transactions in the "postage expenses" category, to
find a selection with dates in the vicinity of that of your letter.
Typically there will be so few that you can then go to the lever
arch file armed with those numbers to find your proof of posting
filed under one of them.

Much more work than having a receipt for payment and a receipt for the
letter.

That's not at all clear. Getting and filing two copies of some documents
in two places is also work which adds up. Most of the time this double
work is unnecessary: Out of all the recorded delivery letters you have
ever sent, how often have you had to dig out the proof of posting in
order to produce it? Not very, I'd say. And then it would not have
taken not very long to find it in the accounts file, almost certainly
much less than what you get if you add up all the time wasted filing
extra copies which never need to be consulted.

Most of my dealings are with Companies House and HMRC so over 50% of
the time I have to refer to the proofs of posting. These organisations
are in a chaotic state due to the desire to keep their snouts in the
trough rather than have a clue what they are supposed to be doing.

Your statement seems to be made without any analysis of the time spent
putting two documents in two different places as opposed to putting
one document is one place and then going from one file and finding the
relevant document in another file.

It didn't say that it's proof that you paid for it!

Yes of course it does, it contains the words "THIS RECEIPT", and "receipt"
*means* that it is an acknowledgement that they have received the money
which is detailed further up the document.

If you want to be pedantic, the word "receipt" means they acknowledge
having received *something*, not necessarily money, and I believe
you are interpreting this to mean it acknowledges having received the
letter. I believe this is a misinterpretation, and that the word
"receipt" should be taken to have the usual common meaning of proof of
receipt of payment, and the words "this receipt ... is your proof of
posting" are to be taken to mean "this proof of payment is also your proof
of posting".

I want to be pedantic - or, more realistically, correct.

But to claim this document is not a proof of payment would be incorrect.

So if you bought stamps separately (and obtained a receipt for payment
of those stamps at that time) and then handed the stamps over would
this document showing the receipt of the letter for the £1.14 priced
service show a different price for the service? I think not. Then you
would actually have two receipts (you say of payment) which totally
more than £1.14 - one for the stamps and one for the proof of delivery
service.