Why Do Old Fashioned Accountants Put The Totals At The Bottoms Of Columns

"Damn it," young Fred was heard to mutter from behind his computer on his desk in

the corner of the communal open-plan office of a major accounting firm.

"What is wrong now?" his supervisor, who happened to be passing close by, asked.

"Well," said Fred. "You gave me this mucky old shoe box of crumpled vouchers and invoices and you asked me to match them up with entries in these bank statements, write the check numbers on the vouchers and file them in numerical order. Then I have to add them up, take off the deposits, work out a balance, and do a bank reconciliation."

"Right, you understand correctly, so what is the problem?" The supervisor asked. "I know it is a boring job, but, as the most junior in the office, I am afraid it falls on you. But do not worry. The jobs will get more interesting as your experience grows."

"I thought that, instead of using a boring old cashbook and calculator I would practice the spread-sheeting skills I learned at the course I was at last week," Fred continued. "I could enter them in randomly, finding the check numbers as I went, and then use the sort facility to sort them into cheque number order."

"Good idea, that shows some initiative," the supervisor continued. "But you still have not told me what the problem is."

"I am just setting up the template now and, because I do not yet know exactly how many entries there are going to be, I do not know how far down the spread-sheet I should put the totals and calculate the balance." Fred answered.

"I will go and get Stella, she is the Excel expert," the supervisor replied, before disappearing into a nearby closed off office. Minutes later he re-appeared accompanied by a lady in her late twenties. Stella was the department manager.

The pair approached Fred and although Pete, the supervisor, had already explained his dilemma to her, Stella let Fred describe it to her again.

"Why do the totals need to go at the bottom of the columns?" She asked Fred after he had finished his explanation.

"They always go at the bottom. Every ledger, every cashbook, and every register of any kind that I have ever seen has the totals at the bottom. Anyway, where else could you put them?" Fred answered with another question.

"Why do you not put them on the top? Stella answered. Then using the Freeze Panes facility, you can always see the totals as they gradually increase. You can make the formula cover as much of the column as you want, as all the cells below the last entry will be blank. Go right down to row 65536 if you want. Also you can calculate the running balance as you go. And if you put that above the Freeze Panes row as well, that will always be in view too. The formula there will simply be the opening balance plus the total of the deposits less the total of the withdrawals."

"Cool, thank you," said Fred. "When did you learn that one?"

"I thought of it myself. About 3 years ago a client came to me to ask me to recommend a wages program for him to keep track of his sub-contractors. He said the number varied between 20 and 50 each week. As they were sub-contractors, I said I could do a quick spread-sheet for him for much less than the cost of a program. It was then I came across the same problem as you. The obvious solution was to make room for 50 workers but what if a busy time arrived and there were 60 or 70 people working. It was then I realised that the totals could be at the top and I have used this technique as a matter of course in many different spread-sheets I have designed since."

"Gee thanks Stella," Fred said as his boss turned to go back to her office. As she did this, Fred turned to the shoe box full of crumbled vouchers with more enthusiasm than he had the first time.

by: Phil Ramage

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