Booking engine

A Kienzle booking machine, class 200

Ascota booking machine, class 170/15 (around 1960)

The booking engine is a device with which business transactions can be automatically netted according to receipts . It developed from the combination of typewriter and adding machine in the 1930s and was produced and used until the 1980s. Although accounting machines also have the function of machine computing, they are generally not counted among the calculating machines.

In times of manual bookkeeping, a business booking process was complex and time-consuming. Individual items first had to be added up in the head or with a calculating machine and then entered manually in the ledger under a specific account with a corresponding booking note and the appropriate document number . The causes of discrepancies were incorrect calculations, incorrect relationships between items, text and reference as well as illegible handwriting, even if the accountants at the time always tried to list everything correctly and legibly. Since the beginning of the era of machine writing and arithmetic, accountants also worked by machine, albeit initially with two machines; a calculating machine for calculating the sums and a typewriter with which entries were made on a book sheet with booking text and reference. The booking engine simplified these booking processes by partially automating the calculations that typically occur in bookkeeping and combining the use of the necessary machinery.

The range of possibilities and the range of functions varies greatly among all models from the respective manufacturers. Clearly recognizable is a steadily progressing development and increase in complexity over time.

Due to the increasing demand for electronic storage and processing of data, a completely new type of booking machine arose with the magnetic account computer , which in principle can be operated like a classic booking machine, but is essentially a specialized computer system from medium-sized data technology .