[Illustration: Fig. 36. Transfer Drawer. _Browne-Morse Co._]
[Illustration: Fig. 37. A Row of Metal Files. _The Berger Co._]
The most apparent advantage of metal files is the safety afforded, as it has been amply demonstrated that they will go through a very severe fire without damage to contents. Few offices have sufficient vault space for the papers that must be kept. Metal files not only take care of the valuable papers, but by keeping all papers away from combustible material, act as a fire preventive.
Another reason for the increasing popularity of metal files is the scarcity of suitable timber and its advancing cost. The supply of oak and mahogany is decreasing so rapidly that the necessity for a substitute seems inevitable in the near future. For office furniture steel seems to offer the most practical substitute.
[Illustration: BURROUGHS ADDING MACHINES IN THE OFFICE OF THE FAIR, DEPARTMENT STORE, CHICAGO, ILL.]
One of the chief functions of the comptroller's office is to gather statistics which tell what is being done in every branch, department, and division of the business. The purpose of these statistics is to show the results of these activities--the gross volume of transactions, the cost, and the result in net profits. When assembled in the form of intelligent reports, these statistics present an understandable history of the business.
The statistical department may be considered as the cost department of the commercial branch. Manufacturers recognize the necessity for comprehensive statistics in the manufacturing branch; they realize that they must know what their goods cost to manufacture; but in comparatively few enterprises is the importance of commercial costs recognized.
In the factory, costs are figured down to the most minute detail; what it costs to perform each operation on every part of the completed whole is known; the efficiency of every man--what he costs in wages, in power, and general expense, and the cost of every bit of material he uses--all of this is told by the cost accounting system. What it costs to sell the goods is usually a matter of guess work.
To know what it costs to run a business--to know _commercial costs_--is just as important as to know manufacturing costs. Both are necessities if the business is to attain its greatest possibilities.