THE ANNUAL AUDIT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19833, 31 December 1927, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE ANNUAL AUDIT.

reviewing accounts.

by matanga,

Ihank Heaven! that's done," aaid Jobson, rising from the chair before his office table, where he had been seated long in busy quiet, save for the rustling of paper, the sharper sound of turned pages, the occasional slamming of a bookcover, and such human noises as a fullbodied man emits when he is pushing on with a will to finish the job in hand. lhat s done," he echoingly repeated, stretching his arms above his head, "That" was his preparation for the yearend audit. For Jobson was old-fash-ioned enough to like his financial year to march with the calendar. "No carrying on to the end of March for me," he had once rebelliously protested when a friend urged him to throw everything aside for a clear three weeks from Christmas on, nor even to the last day of January. You fellows are welcome to your Christmas week of dissipation. I get some fun; but I come back to see that my year's accounts aro all in order for audit, and New Year s Day finds me with nothing to bother my mind about the old year's business. That's gone with the year. What's the use of going on holiday until it can be enjoyed without thought of unfinished accounts coming to spoil it?" So lie had said and so he believed. Perhaps the fact that his was not a big busi ness, with long credits and accommodations, helped him to put his idea into practice. There it was, anyway: every entry made and checked, every file complete, every voucher in unbroken succession, and a balance struck. Once more, as if the thought was too good to lose, he murmured to the empty room. "That's done, think The Supreme Auditor. He cut the inverted ejaculation short with snapped lips, and sat down again, looking at the neat piles of books and papers lying there waiting for conveymce to the safe—the processional ceremony that always closed this annual, solitary period of devotion to business and an idea. There they lay, a tribute to his care for a calendar year's importance. Yes, his was only a little business, but it was worth while. Indeed, Jobson had another notion that made his friends smile. "If ever I find my business getting too big for my own personal oversight, I'll chuck it," he had emphatically explained to some of them, "and go and work for somebody else." Those piles on the table were considerable, but he knew everything that they could tell him. Now, as he looked at them, sitting with the memory of an unuttered word lingering to prompt other thoughts, he mentally reviewed them, like a commanding officer on parade taking the salute. Invoices, statements, receipts; cash hook, journal, ledger; the year's statement of income and expenditure, and a balance-sheet, with a bankbook near them. But it was not so much this array as the unspoken word that set his mind moving now. Was account being kept, somewhere high above all life of earth, of all that he was doing, getting, spending? Was there some Supreme Auditor, for whose judgment all the profesisonal accountants in this world were merely engaged in routine scrutiny and totting ? They , talked much of " authority," insisting on the production of satisfying documentary evidence for every transaction enterd in his and others books. Might S there not be some Highest Authority without whose vouching all mortal business would fail to pas's muster? Of course, of course; he had accepted that as a fact beyond dispute, but not till to-day had he linked it to these paper records of a vear. Now they got a meaning beyond his ordinary, commercial way of looking at them. " Mankind Was My Business." They stood for his business; but what was his business ? A means of livelohood ? No doubt. Ho and a comfortable little home behind him were dependent upon it. If it should fail, things would go hard with him and those others. Only as it succeeded could they all be spared want. A livelihood? Yes, but a livelihood was not life—only a means of supporting life, of making life possible. And, somehow, he could not help thinking that the Supreme Auditor would be less concerned with the particular avenues in which men got their livelihood that with how they had lived, with what they had done with their lives. Jobson had tho comfort of all honest men that his way of conducting his business had always been above reproach, but this might not be enough. Might there not be an audit going deeper than a professional's scrutiny—an investigation into motives as well as documents, irUo all that made up his life ? His business ? Yes, this occupation of his ordinary working hours was what he called his business. But was it tho whole of his business ? There came to him words he had lately—on Christmas morning itself—read in quiet, . " Mankind was my business, the voice of Marley's ghost had said in searching tones to Scrooge, " The common welfare was my business; charity, • mercy, forbearance and benevolence was all my business; the dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business. Those receipts, vouchers, accounts, were full of names, names of those with whom he had dealings. His business was done with people, people who had rights of life as much as he had —not mere names. Had he been more than a name to them ? Had he made his transactions a channel of goodwill, of cheer, of help t«o live ? He had paid wages—good wages, lie was glad to think—but was that all for which they had a right to look to him . .Jobson ran over the names of these employees, realising how little he knew, how little he had cared to know, of their circumstances. He would alter thai— not nrvmzlv. but with enough manifestation of interest to lead them to confide in him if they had need. In Debt to the Landlord.

Interest? Ah! Some of those receipts were for payments he had made for loaned capital invested in his business; not much, but it had been essential, lint was not everything among his resources—material and mental a loan ft-om Someone? He recalled a story of talents bestowed —"that I ought receive mine own with interest." Others ol those receipts were for rent. Jobson wondered whether ho had paid life s 'put —fully, promptly, gladly. He knew himself a tenant. Was he in debt to the Great Landlord ? Rates and taxes were represented by a few acknowledgments there on the table. As a reasonable citizen, ho had deemed these payments a duty. After all it was good government that made good business possible, and did not the ordering of things bv an unseen Providence lie behind all the achievements that men were prone to put down to the credit of their own brain and hand? Involuntarily. Jobson s bead bent ana his eyes closed for a moment. Then be rose quicklv, saying aloud ag»in. "Thank Heaven!" but this time a tone of reverence lingered in the words. Soon the last offices of his year's routine were performed. Into the safe went neatly to their resting-places the books and piles of papers, ready against the scrutiny of his regular audit dr. The safe-door was locked, and the street-door closed with a click, and each seemed to say, like Jobson, "That's done." But Jobson, as he took his way homeward along the street, said something very different quietly to himself. It was, "And the books were opened." If any passer-by had overheard, he might have wondered what Jobson meant..