Every business is run while handling books of all kinds.
Account books
Receipts books
Invoices books
Orders books
Price quotes books
Consignment notes, Way bills, Delivery notes.
And other needs which were not mentioned above.
The question is not whether you need all these books or how and when to use them, but how to design them up to your needs and preference.
Account books (of all kinds) are combines of three sections:
- The title – headline.
- The table which contains the main context.
- The summations.
The main table:
Usually is built of rows and columns.
The rows contain the items of the book, depends on the purpose of it.
I believe that one will try to squeeze as many rows as he can in order to utilize the book as much as can be done.
The columns will be designed according to the specific context of the book and for most purposes will be as mentioned below:
- Ordinal number.
- Item name, code or serial number.
- Item price or payment.
- Number of items or payments.
- Row total, which is multiplying columns 3 by 4.
The summations section is very technically: it will contain at list three items -
- Column 5 summation.
- VAT
- Total to pay.
Sometimes there will be predesigned empty spaces for filling in paying means details like: cheques, credit card, cash and so on.
Last row will be left for signatures of people concern.
Business people who order account books don't pay much attention to the main table or to what's below it. Their attitude to those two section is very technically. But they'll pay a lot of attention to the Title section because they consider this part almost as to a Business Cards or a Flier. Details which are commonly appear in the Title are:
- Business / Firm name
- Business man/woman name and title, job, duty, qualifications, rank, status....
- "Logo”
- Business / Firm's slogan. A short sentence of advertisement.
- Date
- Address
- Telephones and Faxes.
- E-mail
- Website URL.
- License number (lawyers, Physicians, brokers and such)
- Business registration number (For taxes matters)
Not all these information items can be included in the limited space dedicated for the Title. It is recommended to consult an accountant what's important, and maybe even necessary, to be mentioned in the Title. There are details which are supposed to appear legitimately speaking.
Most of the business people I served referred to the account book sheets as messengers. They told me: “We handle our customers the receipt or invoice and they keep it. Someday they'll return to us and become regular customers”, further on - some stranger, who never new about this business, might take a look at such a receipt/invoice somewhere and become a new customer.
There are business people who think the other way round: They use as minimum information items as can be. They don't want to be troubled by occasional strangers and what they try to hide most is their address or private ways of contact. They don't consider the account book sheet as a promoter or advertiser.
Final conclusion: Every printed material, related to business running, must be carefully designed and my recommend is to visit a printing website and use one of the predesigned templates there because professionals designed it.
