GOOD PRACTICE

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 69, 18 September 1936, Page 14

GOOD PRACTICE

CITY MILK SCHEME A LONDON OPINION Attached to the. report of the milk committee to the City Council last night was an extract from the July number of "The Accountant," a leading London accountancy journal, which reviewed the milk department's accounts for the 1935-36 trading year in favourable terms:— "We have received from our friends in New Zealand a copy of the accounts issued by the Wellington City Milk Department. It is, so our correspondents state, to the best of their knowledge, the' only municipal venture of this kind in the world. Certainly in this country, municipal trading has been confined to the primary public services such as electricity, gas, water, and transport. We understand that Sheffield once entered the milk distributing business but only for a time. "It is a form of accounts, therefore, which should prove interesting to our readers here and we accordingly, re? print them this week. Their chief merit is that they follow good commercial practice. They are the sort of accounts.in fact that any private individual or firm would have prepared. To a certain extent they need to be read in conjunction with the report of the general manager to the milk committee. He explains, for instance, the cause of the small loss of £22 l!)s Id, and reviews certain assets and other balance-sheet items giving reasons for changes which have taken place. "In trading itself, working expenses were higher but sales rose, bringing an appreciable reduction in the margin of spread between cost and retail selling prices. The accounts are given in considerable detail—far : more than we are used to in this column where our field of view is mainly among the accounts of public companies. With them is included a comparative statement of the essential facts of the business, in a form which is worth noting by those in the profession who endeavour to provide for their clients something more than mere accountancy and income tax service."