# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1914_S122
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

122 Proceedings of the 29th General or

                          Result of Business 1911—1914                    ||   Schedule of Present Worth

Capital and Surplus, 1911...                          $352552.75          || Cash Balance, May 1, 1914......  $ 13210.61
Net Gain, 1911—1914..........                          400776.80          || Merchandise Inv., May 1, 1914..    273265.88
Delivered to Synod ..........   $285000.00                                || Equipment Inv., May 1, 1914....     45097.33
Present Capital & Surplus ...    468329.55                                || Ledger Account's Balance.......      8114.56
                                                                            || Insurance Bonds.................    36000.00
                                                                            || Real Estate......................   92641.17
                                 $753329.55            $753329.55          ||                                   $468329.55

Allow us the following remarks on the above cash report. — The
reports of 1908 and 1911 each covered 36 months. The present report
covers 39 months, that is, a twelfth more than the preceding ones. To
make the comparisons correctly, one must therefore reduce all the
figures given above in which time is a factor (expenditures, receipts,
profit, and so on) by a twelfth before comparing them with the
preceding triennia; otherwise the assets would appear too favorable
and the liabilities too unfavorable compared with before.

On the other hand, it should be noted that our inventory is now
taken, as it should be, at a time when it stands very low — namely,
right after the close of a selling season that begins with the fall
sales of schoolbooks and soon passes into the Christmas market, then
into the periodical-renewal period, and immediately after that into
the Easter market. Taking this into account, our merchandise
inventories must be regarded as too modest when compared with
earlier financial reports, which makes our report above look less
favorable than it actually is.

It will strike the comparing observer that our Real Estate account
shows so significant an increase. This is explained as follows. The
real property of the Concordia Publishing House and the buildings
standing on it were until now not carried in the books of the
Concordia Publishing House, although the deeds are made out to the
Concordia Publishing House and we always paid the taxes and other
expenses on it. This was a technical impropriety whose only excuse
was long-standing custom. But when the new building was erected in
1911, our general agent insisted that the expenditure be debited
against Real Estate, as is proper. Then the professional auditing
firm also pointed out (and indeed more than once) that our books
suffer from a technical inaccuracy if we do not also carry in our
books, as property, what is recorded in the city's books as real
estate in our name. That firm itself made the entry in our journal,
by which the former real estate of the Concordia Publishing House
enters our report above as an asset. (See above, *$37,872.31.) — The
report also includes the addition of the publishing business of the
former English Synod, in the amount of $12,396.09. Deducting these
two items, a sum of $50,268.40, from our present worth of
$468,329.55, there remains, exactly according to the

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