Merchant Accounting: Essential Record-Keeping Books
Merchant’s Obligatory Books of Record
Every merchant is obliged to have books of record for their accounting and business correspondence. The books that merchants must have are the following:
- The daily book
- The inventory book
- The letter copier
Composition of the Daily Book
In the daily book will be settled, day by day and according to the order in which they are carried out, all the operations that the merchant does. This includes letters or any other credit papers that they give or receive, and in general, everything that they receive or deliver, from their account or that of others, by whatever title. Each entry should show who is the creditor and who is the debtor in the negotiation to which it refers.
If the merchant keeps a cash book, it is not necessary to enter the verified payments in the diary.
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Retail merchants (article 3) must settle day by day in the daily book, the total sum of cash sales, and separately, the total sum of the sales on credit (“fiado”).
Inventory Book Contents
The inventory book will open with the exact description of money, movable property and real estate, credits, and any other kind of securities that form the capital of the merchant at the time of beginning their turn. Then, every merchant will form, in the first three months of each year, and will extend in the same book, the general balance of their money, including in it, all their goods.
If the particular fortune of a merchant is different from the capital destined for their turn, or from the funds dedicated to the industry that they exercise, only the latter will be recorded in the inventory book.
In the inventories and balance sheets of the companies, it will be enough that the common belongings and obligations of the social mass are expressed, without extending to the peculiarities of each partner.
Letter Copier Book Requirements
In the copier book, the merchants will transfer in full, and to the letter, all the letters that they write relating to their trade. Letters should be copied in the order of their dates in the language in which the originals have been written. Postdates or additions that are made after they have been registered will be inserted later in the last letter copied, with the respective reference.
Formalities and Prohibitions
The three books that are declared indispensable will be bound, lined, and foliated. As for the way to carry the books prescribed by article 55, as auxiliaries that are not required by law, it is prohibited to:
- Alter in the seats the progressive order of the dates and operations.
- Leave whites or gaps. All entries have to happen one after another, without leaving space for intercalations or additions.
- Make interlineations, scrapes, or amendments. All mistakes and omissions must be saved through a new seat, made on the date on which the omission or the error occurred.
- Cross out any seat.
- Mutilate any part of the book, start a record, or alter the binding and foliation.
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Commercial books that lack some of the formalities prescribed in article 65, or if a merchant omits any indispensable books, will be judged based on their adversary’s books.
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