So I'm plowing through some book-keeping and I've just gotta whine about these receipts. Not the number of them, or the amounts -- that's a whole different whine -- but the presentation.
You'd think that somewhere in all the stuff you've gotta learn to operate a business, someone would teach you how to compose a simple receipt. Apparently not. At a guess, on about one in ten, I'm having to work out the sales tax myself because it isn't itemized. Dates and times are scattered here, there, everywhere, in a variety of formats. The name of the object sold is often so compressed -- one is tempted to say encrypted -- that only memory allows me to analyze the transaction and debit the correct account. Or there is nothing but a total. Really? We bought nothing for $125.00? I don't think so. (Must ask my wife about that one.)
Medical offices are some of the worst offenders. At the time of contact, one typically gets no paperwork to say what was done or what the list price is. Then, a month later, one gets a bill with a number and the unhelpful notation "balance forward". The greatest good luck will sometimes supply at least the date of service. If you can find it.
Ladies and gentlemen of the business community: I am enraged and disgusted. I sweated through basic financial accounting -- twice -- and I know how hard the prof.s work to drill good habits into their students. What happened? Why do we see no evidence of standards, best practices, or just plain looking at the forms and thinking for two seconds? Really, I would be ashamed to hand to a customer of mine some of the records that have been handed to me. There is an opportunity here to delight customers, and you're ignoring it. Please look at your forms with an eye to legibility, decipherability, and completeness of the essential information. Some of us are trying to be businesslike, and we'd appreciate your good example.
