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Aucbvax.2312 fa.works utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!works Thu Jul 16 11:57:43 1981 Re: Reliablity >From cosell@BBN-UNIX Thu Jul 16 11:54:49 1981 I agree with Ben that the `real' accounting fellows really did figure it mostly out (several hundred years ago!), with Journalizing and autid trails and the like. I would like to make a tiny correction: if I remember correctly from some accounting courses I took, double entry bookkeeping has nothing really to do with the `journal' aspect: the double entry name comes from the fact that both debits and credits are simultaneously maintained and every financial transaction is fully entered on both sides. Thus, at any moment, you can check a set of books for a simple addition error by simply totaling up all of the accounts and the balance should always be zero. (I think that this is called taking a trial balance).

/Bernie

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