Financial accounting - William Harkess

Dates: c 1921-1946
Description: Financial accounting is the activity of processing, recording, classifying and analysing information on financial transactions between the company and third parties, and between the company and its employees.

Biographical history
The firm's accounting system comprised funeral order books (ref: FRAS 888), private funeral ledgers (ref: FRAS 890) and customer invoices (ref: FRAS 894). When customers requested a funeral, their requirements were entered in the funeral order books. The details recorded in these books included the price of each element of the funeral. On the day of the funeral, each entry was posted from the order book to the funeral ledger.The page number of the corresponding entry in the order book was recorded next to each entry in the funeral ledger. Invoices were subsequently sent out to each customer. The date of payment of each account was recorded in the ledger. Frequently, customers were unable to pay their accounts and entered into correspondence about this with the firm. These letters (ref: FRAS 894) were kept loose inside the funeral ledgers. In 1946, H & W Harkess Ltd took over William Harkess' financial accounting system, after William Harkess joined Hugh Harkess to form H & W Harkess Ltd.