Financial accounting - Hugh Harkess

Dates: 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 887), private funeral ledgers (ref: FRAS 889) and customer invoices (ref: FRAS 893). 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. Entries were posted from the order books to the funeral ledgers. 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 893) were kept loose inside the funeral ledgers. In 1946, H & W Harkess Ltd took over Hugh Harkess' financial accounting system, after Hugh Harkess joined William Harkess to form H & W Harkess Ltd.