Today’s Saturday Short is a special occasion: “Troubles of a Merchant and How to Stop Them” is our first silent short! It’s about how a cash register can save your business in 1917.
Welcome to J.W. White’s store. There are baskets and crates of fruits and vegetables outside, with more in the window. Inside more produce is displayed in baskets and barrels. There are counters around the edges of the store in front of shelves because this is before Piggly Wiggly invented self-service shopping.
The cash till is manned by a young woman in a cage of chain-link fencing. She is also the complaints department. Two women get tired of being ignored by a sales clerk and make sure to fuss at the cashier before they leave. When she’s not getting yelled at, she’s recording all the day’s sale in her account book…in pencil.
That night Mr. White works on the books. He sighs heavily. “I expect I’ll have to borrow again,” he says via title card. They only made $21.17 today according to the receipts the cashier spindled.
How, in the days before cash registers, did the store handle its transactions? Let’s watch.
A Cash Sale: An old woman comes up to the cashier. She gives her the receipt the sales clerk gave her with the cash for her purchase. The cashier gives the woman her change and spindles the receipt. Easy-peasy!
Charge Take With Sale: The butcher weighs out a leg of meat. It will cost $5.20. Does the CPI calculator page go back to 1917? Yes it does! That’s $138.81 in today’s money, YE GODS. Nevertheless, the customer will take it. The butcher wraps it in paper, tying it with his convenient Ceiling Twine. The customer will charge the meat to his account. (At those prices, I’ll bet he will.) The butcher starts to write down the charge while the customer walks out with his leg of Wagyu beef. Mr. White interrupts the butcher to fuss at him about something. Then another clerk asks the butcher to help with something. The charge is never recorded. Free meat at J.W. White’s, y’all!
An Exchange Transaction: A woman comes in with a bundle of cloth she had bought earlier. She wants to exchange it for better cloth. “No receipt,” the title card announces. “No way to prove the place or amount of the purchase.” The woman stalks out of the store with her inferior dry good.
Cash on Delivery: The cashier takes a phone order for a pound of cheese. Sure, we all want that much cheese, but this person was brave enough to order it! She writes down the order on her pad, noting that it will be sent C.O.D. She gives the order to the delivery boy as a woman comes up to show off the new gloves she bought. While the women admire the gloves, the C.O.D. receipt falls to the floor where it is swept up and thrown away. When the delivery boy turns in his collections that evening, he has extra money in his take. The accounts, once again, will not tally.
The Sugar Purchase: A woman gives her daughter some money to buy sugar. The clerk, too involved with chatting up the cashier, ignores the little girl until she demands his attention. As he leaves, another clerk comes up to continue cashier-chatting-up duties. The first clerk measures out the sugar into a paper bag, but doesn’t notice that he spilled some of it on the scale. He wraps up the bag and gives it to the girl who takes it home to mother who’s been waiting impatiently for the one ingredient she needs for her cookies. When she takes the bag from her daughter, she notices it feels a little light. She weighs it on her own scale. This isn’t the half-pound she requested! And she was charged for a whole half-pound! She should have been given a ten-cent unobservant clerk discount! She gets her shawl on, grabs her daughter, and marches down to that J.W. White’s store to give that clerk a piece of her mind. Mr. White steps in to calm things down.
Too late, though. As the woman leaves, she makes sure to tell everyone how Mr. White shortchanges everyone. Meanwhile a man comes in with a huge bunch of bananas.
Money Paid Out: The banana man goes to the cashier. He gets the money from the cashier for his bundle. She immediately gets a call and forgets to record the transaction.
Even Change: The dry-goods clerk sells a few yards of cloth for exact change. He goes over to the cashier, but she’s getting ready to leave for the day. The clerk holds the receipt and money while he has a brief hallucination of the Devil and Grandma tempting him to keep the money. Uncounted money, the title card tells us, is the greatest temptation in the world. Grandma wins. Grudgingly, the clerk spindles the receipt and puts the money in the till.
No Record of Money Received on Account: An indignant woman comes in with a bill. “I’ve already paid this!” her title card says. The cashier checks the books. She can’t find any record of the money received on this account. The woman came prepared for this eventuality. She whips out another receipt from last month proving that she had already paid. Her point made, she stalks out of the store. “I need a better system,” Mr. White’s title card groans.
Dispute Over Change: A man says he was shortchanged a quarter. An argument ensues. The cashier gives him a quarter.
The clerks and cashier all get to go home when the store closes. Mr. White stays behind to tally up the day’s take…in pencil. He has trouble reading everyone’s handwriting on the receipts. Was that tea 10 cents or 70 cents? Mr. White makes it 70. An hour later he’s finally done adding up the day’s totals. “Short again,” his title card sighs. That tea must have been 10 cents after all. He makes up the shortage with money from his own pocket and slumps off home.
His children are cheerfully doing their homework and playing piano. They cheerfully hug Dad when he comes in. He grumbles hello as he falls into his chair. He’s too tired to read his son’s essay. Why is daughter making all that racket on the piano? Mom comes in to shoo the children away. She sits down to hear her husband gripe about his day, responding only to complain about his bad attitude. It’s another pleasant evening at The Lockhorns.
Now J.W. White’s has a modern layout. The produce is displayed on a table instead of old-fashioned crates and barrels. The counters are all snazzy now with display space underneath the tops. The shelves along the edges of the store have glass fronts. The male clerks are now wearing white pharmacist coats instead of aprons. No more chicken wire for our cashier, she’s been promoted to Ladies Apparel because now Mr. White has a cash register!
How has life changed in J.W. White’s store with this new marvel? Let’s watch:
Cash Take with Sale: One of the clerks ties up a lady’s bag of (correctly measured) sugar and enters the purchase into the cash register. The change drawer pops out. He gives the customer the correct change and a receipt printed from the register itself. Now they can have advertising on their receipts. He tucks the slip under the string on the bag and gives it to the customer.
Charge Take with Sale: The Lady Clerk sells a pair of gloves. The customer will charge it to her account. Lady Clerk writes the amount on her pad before recording it in the cash register. It prints out two charge slips. One is put in a giant file behind the register while the other is put in the envelope with the gloves.
Money Received on Account: A woman comes in to make a payment on her charge account. Mr. White retrieves her receipt from the file. He records the new balance, takes the customer’s $10 and enters it into the cash register. It prints out a payment slip. He gives the lady her new receipt and puts the handwritten one in the file.
Money Paid Out: The store owes the milkman $1.40. The dairy clerk records the payment in the cash register, making sure it’s typed correctly on the continuous record on the side of the machine. He gives the milkman his signed paid out receipt along with a giant dollar bill and 40 regular-sized cents.
The register can also keep track of what each clerk sold. They’ve all been assigned a different letter on the machine that is recorded on the continuous receipt along with their payments and charges. Mr. White can easily keep track of how much each clerk is selling. He takes a minute to show off how the register can keep track of how many customers the store had.
That cash register is actually really cool. It’s like a manual computer. It’s amazing how much registers could do back then.
The clerks can use the register to compare their totals. Now they have a benchmark to go on, they jump on customers as soon as they come up to the counters to keep their numbers up.
Checking Deliveries: The delivery boy checks the crates of goods going out. Each one has a printed receipt now. Mr. White double checks the receipts for accuracy on the register. Notice also that the window display has been updated, with fruit piled haphazardly on the shelf instead of in those old-fashioned wicker baskets.
The System Removes Temptation: A ringleted girl buys a square. The clerk goes over to the register with the change to have another hallucination. This time, instead of the Devil and Grandma, he sees the ghost of the receipt hanging in the air over his shoulder. He enters the change, adding to his daily sale total. Good thing, because that’s the first thing Mr. White checks when he comes back in from wherever he went.
C.O.D. Transaction: A clerk takes a phone order. He takes the order off the shelf, making sure to enter the price into the register. One slip is added to the order while the other goes into the giant file under the Miscellaneous and C.O.D. tab. He adds the item to the delivery crate.
Tom Wins an Increase: Mr. White keeps track of each clerk’s totals on a chalkboard in his office. He notices Tom has the top numbers for the month. He calls Tom in to show him how well he’s doing and raises his pay an extra nickel a week.
Children are no longer ignored because everyone wants a chance to use the new register. The girl from The Sugar Incident comes up to the bean counter. The clerk weighs out her order accurately. She watches him enter the purchase in the register before taking her (correct) change, the beans, and the receipt. She comes home to give the beans to Mom before putting the change in the cigar box in their kitchen cabinet. Just in case you wanted to rob them later, that’s where they keep their money.
Each clerk has their own drawer which they total at the end of their shifts. Thanks to this register, Mr. White’s figures are now accurate. He can easily check the amounts charged, sold, and paid out against what is recorded on the clerks’ statements, the register slip, and the receipts in the giant file. While he’s checking the file, let’s take a moment to admire the display or pliers and drill bits on the wall behind him.
Now Mr. White has a simple daily statement of his day’s sales totals. It’s all neatly organized thanks to the register. He goes back to his office to put the receipts and cash in his safe before putting on his hat to skip off home.
There have been changes at home as well. Mr. White used some of his profits to buy a comfy armchair instead of the hard ladderback he had before. He’s no longer too tired to listen to his children play on the piano. He can even have a pleasant conversation with his wife as she sews and he glances at the evening paper. Life is good. Thanks cash register!
The Eclectic Reviewer 