The deposit ledger is one of the bulkiest and heaviest of the office books. It contains the full record of the active drawing accounts of the branch's customers. It is a matter of some skill to block out the space and head up the accounts when opening a new ledger, so that the available pages can be used without an undue amount of transferring of accounts. To guide him in his task, the ledger-keeper has his old ledger before him. That tells the number of pages filled by each account in the two, three, or more years of the ledger's life. He has to allow for possible increases or decreases in activity of the respective accounts, and to leave room for new accounts. This last matter is hardly one that can be calculated. Neither the ledger-keeper, nor anybody else, can tell how much new business the manager will secure, nor what the index letters of the important new accounts will be.

Why The Loose-Leaf System Is Not Universal

In most respects the loose-leaf type of account book that has lately come much into vogue, is peculiarly adapted for use as deposit ledger. It does away altogether with the work of blocking out and of transferring accounts that have used up the space allotted to them before the ledger is done, and it avoids waste of space. It is quite an advantage to be able to refer to a continuous record of a customer's account extending back a number of years. This the loose-leaf system permits. With the bound ledgers it is necessary, when it is desired to trace payments by or to a customer through a period of years, to have the desks piled maybe with several huge volumes, and to turn from one to the other and back again times without number.

On occasions, too, these huge books must be produced in court as part of the necessary evidence in actions at law. In view of the advantages they offer it is not surprising that loose-leaf ledgers have made considerable headway in being adopted by the banks. But a number of institutions have not yet been able to satisfy themselves, in respect to the deposit ledger, that the loose-leaf books offer the same protection against fraud as do the bound booksThe trained banker's mind is apt to revolt at the thought of a ledger-keeper using a book from and to which leaves may be subtracted and added respectively. Banks have suffered some exceedingly heavy losses through manipulation of the deposit ledger. One of the most notable recent cases was furnished in Liverpool, England, where the ledger-keeper of an important bank, acting in collusion with an outside swindler, victimized his bank to an amount considerably exceeding half a million dollars. Thus, the deposit ledger is a department about which bankers generally have some feelings of nervousness. Naturally, they are not quick to adopt a new system which may, for all they know, afford an easier opportunity for defalcations by dishonest employes.

Taking Over The Ledger

It is unlikely that our whilom junior will commence his work on the ledger by opening a new book. It is more probable that he will be called on suddenly to take over a "going" ledger from an officer who has just as unexpectedly been promoted to a higher position in the office, or moved to another branch. The outgoing ledger-keeper must balance his book before he can be released from the post. Presuming that he does so under date of 10th October, then the new man takes charge on the morning of the nth, and thenceforward until he is relieved, he himself makes, or is responsible for, all the entries in the book On taking over the book, duly balanced, the ledger-keeper can presume that it is true and correct. It will be so unless a predecessor has falsified it, or made a double mistake, one part of which counteracts and conceals the other. He has his list of the balances as on the evening of the 10th, the added total of which agrees, or balances with, the amount shown in the general ledger at the credit of "current accounts," or "deposits payable on demand." In his ledger, all he has to do is to continue entering the items, as they come to him, in the accounts to which they belong, beginning his entries where his predecessor ceased.