>>>>>Surely you jest.
>>>>>
>>>>>A few years back at MS Cathy Pountney and I worked in the VFP lab until well after midnight (setup testing I think, Cathy?) and I recall starting that day a bit before 9 AM. I can also recall when I was doing cruise ship inventory and sales systems being up against hard deadlines (end of cruise) and putting in over 24 hours reconciling sales with inventory versus the ship's mainframe and our little Fox app.
>>>>
>>>>Sounds familiar - the systems they have on most cruise ships suck. Balancing against them was nightmarish - the lack of reporting available is just stunning.
>>>
>>>I have no doubt. What I can't figure out is why they would need to balance the books by the end of a cruise.
>>
>>Because everyone is leaving then.
>
>It was actually a serious question.

Any imbalance made across several trip may accumulate and the ship is then in danger of capsizing.

This was actually not a serious answer, but it simply begs an even less serious question: if your accounts have a balance, what does that mean? Are they at zero or not? Does debit equal credit or not?