Balancing Pass Books And Returning Vouchers

The recital of the ledger-keeper's duties will be concluded with a description of the manner in which the customers' pass books are balanced and the cancelled vouchers returned to them. On the last days of the month, as the customers bring in their books with deposits, they are asked to leave the books to be balanced. As many books as possible are gotten in.

Though the pass book generally has, on the outside or inside of the front page, a printed request for the customer to leave it at the bank for balancing at the end of each month, a great many customers never leave their books unless they are asked. The first thing is to write in all the entries. Formerly, the books had to be balanced; that is, all the credits and all the debits added up and the balance proved with them.

Now, since pass books showing progressive balances have come more generally into use, the balancing is not so rigidly insisted upon. The next operation is to tick off the vouchers. This is quite a big task, and it may be that the whole staff is called on to assist, so that the books may be ready to hand out on the morning of the first day of the next month. For every debit entry shown in each customer's pass book a voucher must be produced and the entry ticked. The vouchers are sorted away with this circumstance in view, and each customer's vouchers are thus gathered together in an accessible place.

When the vouchers are all found, and all debit entries in the pass books ticked off, the books are ready for handing out. But these vouchers provide the chief means by which the bank can prove the correctness of its customers' accounts, in the event of their disputing the point. Hence, they cannot safely be given up until the customers have acknowledged their receipt and confirmed the correctness of their accounts. As each customer comes in, after the beginning of the month, the ledger-keeper hands him his book and cancelled cheques after taking his receipt and confirmation of account.

Thus, he is debarred from disputing his account up to the end of the previous month. For the items in his account for the current or running month, the bank has, of course, the vouchers he has himself issued, and it can at any time prove any account on its books by producing vouchers back to the date on which the customer last confirmed it.