1. Bank Correspondent

Many of the larger banks have besides a treasurer a secretary. In these his principal duty is that of an accounting officer.

His duties may be divided into three branches : correspondent of the bank, recorder of the board of trustees, and accountant of the bank. On each of these heads a word may be added.

The letters relate to loans, deposits, borrowers, especially delinquents. In many cases special forms are printed, as a letter of transmission to an attorney with a check for a mortgage; another to a depositor with a remittance on account; a request to a depositor to present his pass book for the tracing of an error and to be written up; another to delinquent borrowers; lastly, notices to trustees of meetings.

2. Recording Officer

As recording officer of the board of trustees, the secretary performs the ordinary duties of keeping the journal or minutes, and filing and preserving documents. He submits to the board at each meeting a report relating to the dealings of the bank with its depos itors, giving all the statistics of the number of depositors, amount of receipts, payments., and averages,

3. Accounting Officer

Asaccounting officer, which is his larger duty, he has no custody of any money or other property. but makes either directly or indirectly all records of the transfers of money Thus he is an auditor of every department of the bank; he also keeps personally, or through assistants, all the general books, but not the accounts with the depositors.

a. Daily Cash Book. The business of the bank has three different units of time, - the day, the month, and the half year, - and each of these has its historical record, its counterbalancing proofs, and its final statement of results or balance sheet. The daily transactions are brought to a focus upon the page of the daily cash book, and are also repeated in various forms in special ledgers, namely, the deposit ledger, mortgage ledger, loan ledger, stock ledger, real estate ledger, and rent ledger. For information, there is also kept in the daily cash book, below the cash entries, a daily statement of profit and loss and a daily balance sheet, so that at the close of each day the exact status of the bank, as near as can be ascertained, is recorded.

b. Interest Record. An accurate account is kept, in this book only, of the interest, to the nearest fraction of a cent, which is earned on each class of investment, and this is added to the accrued interest account daily, and also credited to the income account. Similarly, the accretion of rents and any other profits is recorded. On the other hand, the exact daily amount is apportioned for payment of salaries, of taxes, of dividend as estimated, of general expenses, and for the extinction of the premium on bonds as they approach maturity.

Each of these elements produces its effect on the profit and loss or surplus account, and equally on some branch of the resources or liabilities, actual or estimated, so that the business of the day results in a balance sheet; the cash transactions appearing above, of course, arc taken into consideration.

c. Verification of Balances. The balance of each department of the cash, and also of the cash as a whole, is also verified daily. The monthly work consists in the aggregation of all the events of the month into two sets of columns, which give the general condition. These totals, when posted to the general ledger, form the basis of its trial balance. The trial balance of the general ledger is not precisely identical with the balance sheet contained in the daily cash under the last day of the month, for this reason : the general ledger, in its current or normal state, is kept on the basis of cost. No profit or loss, by depreciation or appreciation, is recognized until realized by the actual disposition of the proceeds. Hence, the trial balance of the general ledger is a balance sheet on the cost basis, while the daily balance sheet is on the basis of present market values.

There are other duties of a more technical nature, which require much space to describe fully, relating to the valuation of mortgages and investments belonging to the bank, and the ascertainment of balances due to depositors.