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Chapter 73: Accounting? What’s that?
Restaurants apparently achieved a highly appraised ambiance through paintings and performers. As I couldn’t evade this custom, I created gorgeous covers and flowerpots that gave the decorative plants an additional artistic touch, resulting in everyone becoming extremely delighted.
Now then, leaving the interior design at that, I started to work on the management.
I thought I had hired people capable of accounting to let them handle it, but…the people capable of accounting actually couldn’t process the accounting!
Bennyboy hasn’t only played around by driving Bronko together with Sword, but he’s also gone along with my consultations. I’ve heard that he’s capable of accounting to a reasonable degree as a merchant, but I quickly realized that accounting on the level of the other world would be impossible.
“…You are truly a box full of surprises when it comes to versatility, Indra. What’s the deal with you being better at accounting than me?” Bennyboy said in astonishment.
“I’m not an Allrounder for show. …But, I’m in a bind. Is it something that can somehow be handled through education?”
Even in the other world, the number of people capable 『of properly noting down the figures in accordance to the set rules』 were limited. I wonder whether this world has any of them…
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…At that point, an employee’s child raised its hand.
“I’m good at writing, so I’ll memorize it, even if it costs me my life!”
Eh? You don’t have to go that far, seriously.
“Umm, there’s other people who are good at it as well, so would it be alright for them to learn it as well?” I was asked.
“If they’re motivated, I’ll teach them, but their employment will depend on whether they’re good enough at it afterwards,” I warned in advance.
Bennyboy was apparently going to join in as well, stating that now wasn’t the time to play around.
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I held a bookkeeping course for several children and adults (somehow they increased in number) who had become my pupils.
I’ll be troubled if I can’t get them to master a receipt journal at the very least as absolute basics. Using a presentation with holographic panels, I explained what the course would be about and what a receipt journal was used for.
“It’s a method to note down figures, eventually allowing anyone to easily tell how much profit has been made, how many goods are still left on stock, and whether it matches with the account book, if you aim for perfection, but this world doesn’t require all that. For starters, it’ll be for simply tracing the money flow.”
Given that this world had only simple paper, I created paper bundles with grids similar to registers at high speed with my magic. Because the currencies were divided in this kingdom, it made things slightly annoying.
And then I gave a lecture on how to write a cash book. For the calculations I built a magic calculator! I also used an abacus, so I gave them a lecture on how to use abacuses.
I strictly instructed them to use the magic calculator for the final verification of accounts and to always check back three times if they found any errors.
When I told them that they could do mental arithmetics if they felt confident in that, all of them shook their heads.
Bennyboy raised his hand.
“It might be no more than an absurd idea, but don’t tell me, can you actually calculate these figures in your head, Indra?”
“Obviously.”
Everyone stared at me with their mouths agape.
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Not just Bennyboy, but even other merchants came to me in order to receive my lessons on accounting for some reason. It was plain as day that Bennyboy was the criminal behind spreading the information.
“It’s impossible for me to teach them free of charge. Bennyboy, you’re Sword’s friend, and we plan to explo…have you help out without profit now and in the future, so it’s an investment into the future.”
“You said exploit right there. I totally heard it!”
Bennyboy became naggy.
“…It suddenly struck me, but Bennyboy, aren’t you too loose-tongued?”
“Huh? You haven’t heard?”
Heard what?
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――It seems like Bennyboy’s loose tongue was the trigger for him to get acquainted with Sword in the first place.
Back when Sword tried to sell treasures he had obtained in a dungeon to the merchant guild, Bennyboy apparently went against the rules by interfering with the trade and calling the price in question. For Sword it was a welcome meddling, but it was still taboo to do so in the merchant guild.
Apparently they follow the guideline that the one getting cheated is at fault and should take it as a lesson.
Under normal circumstances Bennyboy should have had his merchant guild’s license revoked as he broke that taboo, and moreover smack down in the middle of the merchant guild, but the one getting cheated was Sword.
Sword got really pissed, it seems.
“…Hee, I should take it as a lesson, eh? Then lemme give the merchant guild a lesson ‘s well. Especially, you little bastard. From now on I’ll never accept a request of the merchant guild. Even if you get attacked by a dragon; as long as the merchant guild is affected, I won’t move a single finger, even if I’m gonna lose my license over it. I’ll publicly announce that I was ’bout to get mugged by this guild and that the guild revoked the license of the sole merchant who tried to prevent it. Oh well, I s’pose that somethin’ like this is just a normal practice for you people. But, if you believe that such shit flies outside this guild, I’ll give you a proper lesson ’bout the value of such a thinkin’. You better be ready for it, fuckers.”
As might be expected, even the guild considered this a very bad deal, and immediately apologized while reissuing Bennyboy’s license, but ever since then Sword never did any business with the merchant guild, always selling stuff directly to Bennyboy. Later, when the adventurer guild started to purchase his dungeon treasures at a fair price, this story spread like the wind, resulting in the guildmaster and his staff of the merchant guild in question being sacked. The end.
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“Hoh! Sword sure is a patient man. I’d have taught the merchant guild what happens if you cheat people by blowing the whole building to smithereens right then and there!”
“Whoa, nothing less of a former noble! You definitely don’t shy away from drastic measures!” He told me in admiration.
“Well, if that were to help Sword, it’d be fine, but I’d hate it, if it caused trouble for him. In short, there are good and bad times to speak up, you know Bennyboy? I guess it means I can’t tell you anything I want to keep secret.”
“You’ve got so little trust in me. I mean, even I wouldn’t blather about something that’s supposed to stay confidential.”
Can he be trusted? Right now, in this situation.
But, the merchants attending the lesson through Bennyboy were young and modest. They were also paying for the lessons. Therefore, I taught them how to keep an account book, how to extract lists out of the account book, and how to draft documents based on analysis of the account book. Using a merchant who had been keeping book relatively decently as an example, we did his accounting once more with what we’d learned so far, fixed it, did assorted journalizing, classified the accounts, and created lists.
“If you do it like this, it’s easy to tell what the money has been spent on, right? You’re also able to say how much profit you made with this paper here. Even the entries written down here are easier to understand if you keep book. If you continue filling out these papers regularly, you’ll become able to grasp the money flow over time. Until now you might have done it by feeling, but numbers are precise and don’t lie. I think you’ll reach a point where you’ll be able to analyze the fluctuations in the amount of money of stocked goods.”
It made me feel slightly good how the merchants were full of admiration. Bennyboy praised me highly as well.
“Maaan, don’t you think it’d have been better to not have quit being a noble after all? I mean, you’d be able to develop your fief at an incredible rate if you used your awesome abilities to manage a territory.”
He told me, but all of this is at the level of managing a household’s account book in the other world, you know?