On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 01:01:45 +0000, Peter Saxton
wrote:

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.

Am I alone in asking this?
Please do not think this cheeky, but do you read, and write to the
letters page of, the Daily Telegraph?

On Sun, 17 Jan 2010 00:21:05 +0000, JMS
wrote:

On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 01:01:45 +0000, Peter Saxton
wrote:

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.

Am I alone in asking this?
Please do not think this cheeky, but do you read, and write to the
letters page of, the Daily Telegraph?

No

On Sun, 17 Jan 2010 00:18:19 +0000, JMS
wrote:

On Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:09:31 +0000, Peter Saxton
wrote:

On Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:52:20 GMT, Ronald Raygun
wrote:

Peter Saxton wrote:

I have sent the following email to the Post Office:

"My local Post Offices refuse to give me a receipt for receiving my
money so I can put it with my accounting records so I can correctly
prepare my tax return and have evidence of the payment if HMRC wish to
check.

They say that I can use the receipt of postage instead. I need the
receipt of postage kept with the letter to resolve any dispute with
the recipient.

Please explain why the Post Office refuses to provide receipts for
money received and wishes to inconvenience their customers."

If you intend to complain formally, you should use the correct
terminology. As written it makes you sound like a crackpot (which
I'm becoming decreasingly sure you are not).

It's not me that's going mad it's officialdom. The sooner the
Conservatives get in and stop paying people to do nothing useful -



Things were going quite well in the thread until that.

I think I will call it a day.

Thanks for your contribution.

What day are you going to call it?

On Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:09:31 +0000, Peter Saxton

[...]
It's not me that's going mad it's officialdom. The sooner the
Conservatives get in and stop paying people to do nothing useful -

Excuse me but, er.. Titanic, deckchairs...?

On Sun, 17 Jan 2010 10:37:11 -0000, "John Burke"
wrote:

On Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:09:31 +0000, Peter Saxton

[...]
It's not me that's going mad it's officialdom. The sooner the
Conservatives get in and stop paying people to do nothing useful -

Excuse me but, er.. Titanic, deckchairs...?

Not at all. I don't want a Government telling people what to do. If
they simply stop wasting money it would be all the improvement we
need.