Music Trade Review

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Fox Music House Has Splendid
Appointments in New Charleston Home
The Fox Music House, Charleston,
S. C. recently had a grand opening of
a new enlarged headquarters.
The store, fully air conditioned and
carrying a complete line of musical in-
piano and organ salon with a special
tone chamber to bring out the fullest
range of organ tones.
Fox's handles all types of records
from classics to the latest swing music.
and several models of television sets
are always on display.
The move to the new store is the
third since the original music house was
opened in 1928.
The store is owned by Otto Z. Fox
and managed by Harold I. Fox. Eight
THREE VIEWS OF THE NEW HEADQUARTERS OF THE FOX MUSIC HOUSE IN CHARLESTON, S. C.
struments, records, radios and television
sets, has over 3,000 feet of selling
space.
The interior color scheme, is carried
out in chartruese, Berkshire green, and
cerise.
A feature of the store is glass-walled
Accounting
their relative sales performance against
the composite and be happy or disturbed
over their payroll performance in rela-
tion to others. Inclusion by some of
freight charges in cost of merchandise
purchases (which I believe most desir-
able) as contrasted to inclusion in an
expense classification, could also lead to
illogical conclusions. If we wanted to
take the time we could illustrate many
other types of transactions which could
also prove troublesome when a compos-
ite picture is drawn off unless uniform
procedures are followed.
Although the greatest source of diffi-
culty probably results from dissimilarity
in classification of details, these details
can affect any of the accounts and could
be important even though reporting of
results was limited to top summary fig-
ures such as sales, payroll, service costs,
etc. and not the underlying detail. It ap-
pears important, therefore, for any man-
ual of this type which might be prepared
for use by members on a voluntary basis,
'to include appropriate coverage of the
details even though any tradewise an-
alysis should include only top summary
information.
I imagine all of you are familiar with
the statistics compiled by the controllers
group of the N.R.D.G.A. and by Har-
vard University for department and spe-
cialty stores. In addition, within the de-
partment store field there are various
smaller groups of individually-owned
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW, OCTOBER, 1951
Several thousand records line the north
wall of the store. Two soundproof
booths are provided for preliminary
playing of records in addition to a
counter record player with a hand loud-
speaker.
The building has a television antenna
employees form the remaining comple-
ment.
The pianos handled by this house in-
clude Chickering, Jesse French, J. & C.
Fischer, Gulbransen, Mason & Hamlin,
Sohmer Co., Story & Clack and others.
The Wurlitzer organ is also featured.
stores, that exchange extensive informa-
tion with each other on a monthly basis.
Over the years, the benefits to many
of the stores in these groups have been
significant. For example, I know of one
store which believed that its average
sales per square foot of floor space was
satisfactory and certainly as good as
most of the other stores. This general
conclusion led it to proceed on status quo
insofar as department layout was con-
cerned until it received the latest
N.R.D.G.A. annual report of Depart-
mental Merchandising and operating re-
sults. As a result it recently completed a
survey of its situation and is now in
process of a major relay of most of the
store. In another case, a store changed
its method of advertising as the result of
an investigation conducted because its
advertising costs were not in line with
the results reported by N.R.D.G.A.
In the case of one of the smaller
groups of stores, the highly efficient op-
eration in one store is soon adapted to
the requirements of the others. Experi-
ence of this group has shown that the
exchange of ideas has been a give and
take proposition, and all have benefited.
The pooling of available information
for the benefit of all reduces the possi-
bility of the same mistakes being made
by many in the group. This concept
merely adopts one of the advantages in-
herent in the chain store organization. It
also gives substance to the adage "Two
heads are better than one."
We have somewhat the same problem
in our firm. We draw on each others ex-
perience through what we call a "Sub-
ject File." In this file we include a rec-
ord of the considerations, arguments and
conclusions on many significant account-
ing matters, so that when a problem is
encountered for the second time, pos-
sibly in one of the offices which was not
in on the original deliberations, that
office has the advantage of all the orig-
inal research as well as the original con-
clusions. Naturally such conclusions are
always open to challenge in the light of
changing conditions and accounting
technique, but at least everyone consid-
ering the problem doesn't have to start
from scratch.
If it works to advantage in cases such
as these, why shouldn't it work to yours?
After all, it represents use of others' ex-
perience as a supplement to your own.
In closing I would like to summarize
the advantages and disadvantages to be
realized by your individual companies
from following good accounting prin-
ciples and practices.
Advantages
1. Secure adequate and accurate in-
formation in a form which is readily
useable to determine and control costs
of doing business.
2. Aid certain businesses by giving
them comprehensive and definite instruc-
tions as to maintenance of financial rec-
ords and reports.
3. Although not previously mentioned,
form the basis for a budgeting approach
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