G. Charter Harrison

For eight years, up to October, 1916, he was employed by Price, Waterhouse & Company in various capacities: during the later part of this period as manager of the system division of that firm.

"[3] Harrison is also noted as one of the foremost pioneers of interest costs, with J. Lee Nicholson, William Morse Cole, John R. Wildman, DR Scott, D. C. Eggleston, and Thomas H.

In a series of articles published in Industrial Management in 1918 and 1919, he developed the advantages, in fact the neces sity, of predetermined costs.

[9] Alford (1921) stipulated that "all of this work has the touch of stern reality, for Mr. Harrison has applied these methods in his own consulting practice and in widely different Industries, so far apart as the tonnage production of steel and the building of complex, agricultural machinery.

And this has been permitted in spite of the teachings of many of the engineers who first entered the industrial field and who were compelled to develop cost accounting as one branch of their own work.

By way of illustration a diagram is given showing the basic features of a simple cost system' for a business manufacturing various kinds of machines of a standard character (see image).

He states that it is rarely in a large business, that any person can be found who is able to completely recite the routine followed in the handling of an order from its receipt in the mail throughout all the intermediate operations up to the final shipping and billing of the material, nor is it often found that any attempt has been made to analyze such routine with a view to eliminating duplication of work and overlapping of authority.

A consideration of this diagram, which covers only a small section of the routine work of a large organization, will indicate how extremely difficult it would be for the average mind to visualize clearly the innumerable relations and operations involved in the conduct of modern business without the assistance of drawings illustrating these in complete detail.

[10] Unless the practice of machine design is followed and all the parts of the plan or scheme and their various interrelationships are clearly shown on paper it is practically impossible to determine where the routine employed involves duplication of authority and effort and working at cross-purposes, where methods of check are defective or overlap and where essential requirements are overlooked and non-essentials introduced.

Due to the absence of such diagrams, the conception in the mind of the average shop or office employee of the methods employed in the operation of a business outside of his own immediate duties is little more than a blur and this applies to the ordinary routine work of an office, to the methods of accounting employed and to the system of controlling the progress of work throughout the shops.

[10] Harrison gives an example of one case where a store accounting system was introduced under which it was necessary for one clerk to devote his entire time to keeping track of the cost of bolts, nuts, and screws which involved an expenditure of considerably less than his salary, and yet under this plan several hundred thousand dollars of other material was shown on the books as being on hand when as a matter of fact it had been used in the manufacture of product shipped and billed months before.