This should be entrusted to a reliable and competent accountant, for it is on the "general ledger" of a bank that its business should be simply and faithfully recorded, and this is the common centre to which the condensed results of all transactions on auxiliary books should converge. The business of a commercial or National bank is usually embraced within the following "general" accounts, showing its resources and liabilities, which, if the books are correctly kept, should always balance each other in amount:

In addition to these accounts, an account should of course be opened for every correspondent bank with which business is done, and where there are many of such banks, their accounts should be kept in a separate ledger, known as a "bank ledger." If the number of such is not great, then accounts may be kept in the same ledger as the "general" accounts. At the close of the day the entries should be made in these accounts by the general bookkeeper from memoranda in letters or on "credit" and "charge" slips furnished him by the individual bookkeepers, the tellers, the mail clerk, the note or discount clerk, exchange clerk and other employes; and before making his entries he should see that the various credits and debits agree with and offset each other. The entries in most active accounts usually are simply the totals representing the transactions in each account during the day, such as loans and discounts, cash, individual deposits, etc., but the bank accounts should be posted so as to show the nature of the various entries during each day, whether drafts paid or drawn, remittances received or made, collections forwarded or received, interest charged or credited, and the like. If drafts on banks are drawn from stubs, then the number and amount of each draft should be entered in the bank's account on the ledger for convenience of making or checking accounts current with the bank.