Account books were made of common writing paper, usually about 34 x 44 cm. in size, folded in two and bound either at the end or the middle of the paper. These books were neither ruled nor paged. Entries for deductions or decreases were marked with a Japanese character to signify their nature. Sometimes the original entries were dimly struck out or marked with a symbol resembling an inverted capital letter L, instead of making a contraentry.