翻译练习第十四期答案
——全文翻译附译文点评
Billing for goods and services that customers have purchased is part of any business. Traditional billing methods in the brick-and-mortar paradigms are costly and involve generating invoices, stuffing envelopes, affixing proper postage to the envelopes, and sending the invoices to the customers. Meanwhile, the accounts payable department must keep track of incoming payments, post accounts in the database, and ensure that customer data are current.
顾客购买商品，享受相应的服务，并支付费用，是所有商业行为的一部分。在传统的实体商店模式下，其支付方式代价高昂，因为要开具发票，把发票装入信封，贴足邮票，最后将收据寄给顾客。 同时，现金出纳部必须为到帐现金和邮寄款项建立数据库，而且要确保顾客的信息准确无误。
Online stores have many of the same payment collection inefficiencies as their brick-and-mortar cousins. Most online customers use credit cards to pay for their purchases, while auction customers may also use conventional payments methods, including checks and money orders. Electronic cash systems, though less popular than other payment methods do provide several advantages as well as some disadvantages unique to electronic cash.
网上商店与其“实体商店表兄”一样，在资金回收上，效率低下。大部分网上购物的顾客采用信用卡支付方式，而网上竞拍的顾客则可以采用支票和汇票这两种传统的付款方式。电子货币系统不如其他付费方式那样普遍，虽然有其独特的缺陷，但是的确具有一些优势。
For the most part, electronic cash transactions are more efficient (and therefore less costly) than other methods, and that should foster more business, which eventually means lower prices for consumers. Transferring electronic cash on the Internet costs less than processing credit card transactions. You have observed that conventional money exchange systems require banks, banks branches, clerks, automated teller machines, and a parallel electronic transaction system to manage, transfer and dispense cash. That is expensive.
首先，电子货币交易比其他支付方式效率更高（因此花费更少），这将会促成更多的生意，最终意味着消费者可享受更低的价格。在互联网上进行电子货币交易比信用卡交易费用低。 大家一定注意到，传统的货币交易需要银行、银行分理处、职员、自动取款机以及一个与此相连的电子交易系统进行现金的管理，转账和交易。这一过程所需费用较高。
On the other hand, electronic cash transfers occur across an existing infrastructure, the Internet, and through existing computer systems. So the fixed cost of hardware to handle electronic cash is nearly zero. Because the Internet spans the globe, the distance that an electronic transaction must travel does not affect cost. When considering moving physical cash and checks, distance and cost are proportional---the greater the distance that the currency has to go, the more it costs to move it. However, moving electronic currency from Detroit to
