LISTS BALANCED AT THIS DESK: 0  ·  WRONG LINES CIRCLED: 0  ·  FOUND ON THE NINES ALONE: 0
BURROUGHS-PATTERN TEN-KEYSERIAL 44-8113
·ACC 0.00

RANGI PETHERBRIDGE — PRICING

Right. Grab a chair, don't sit on the catalogue. Four invoices, one draft price list, and the grand total on the draft doesn't agree with the four invoices as stated. I've done this list eleven times this year and I am not staying past five for it, so we're going to be quick about it.

Foot the four stated totals on the machine — keys work, use your own keyboard if you like, digits, plus, minus, S for subtotal, T for total. Then take the difference against the draft. Then do what I tell you with the difference.

FOUR SIXTEEN. Typist wants it at five.

PINNED ABOVE THE DESK — R.P.

  1. Divide the difference by nine. Goes in clean → two digits transposed. Stop adding, start reading digits.
  2. Ten times, or a tenth. Difference is 10× or 0.1× a figure on the page → decimal in the wrong place.
  3. Twice a figure. Difference is exactly double something → a plus keyed as a minus.
  4. Only then re-add. And cast out nines on the column — don't re-add it. Re-adding makes the same mistake in the same order.
  5. Foot down, cross-foot across, corner figure must agree both ways.

DISCOUNT, WHICH ORDER — DON'T ASK ME AGAIN

Trade discount comes off the list price first. Settlement discount comes off the trade figure, never off list. A supplier who quotes "33⅓ and 5" means: knock a third off list, then five per cent off what's left. Not thirty-eight and a third off. It is not the same number and it never has been.

$60.00 list, 33⅓ and 5 → $40.00 → $38.00. Somebody doing it the other way gets $37.00 and then wonders why the statement won't come right at the end of the month.