Collection Book, signs the receipt and intials both the duplicate and the entry in the Collection Book. Taking the aggregate under all heads of revenue, the Cashier has over one hundred thousand receipts to sign each year. The receipt is then returned to the Clerk and is given by him to the shroff, who hands it over to the consumer.
At all material times the receipts were written in indelible pencil, and signed in ink.
13. Where there is undue delay in the payment of any account the item is included in a Defaulters List which is sent to the Treasury Solicitor. These lists are prepared by the respective Collection Book clerks, but are not submitted to any check by the Cashier.
Items which have been included on such Lists are paid at the Treasury to the Shroffs in the usual manner, except in cases in which solicitors may be involved or in which che- ques may be sent to the Treasury Solicitor.
When payment is made at the Treasury the Collection Book Clerk prepares a return notifying the Treasury Solicitor.
The Treasury Solicitor renders to the Treasurer a monthly return showing the num- bers of items under the various heads of revenue outstanding according to the Defaulters Lists in his hands.
At the end of each month the total amount shown in the Collection Book as paid during the month is posted by the Collection Book Clerk to the Revenue File in his possession.
14. Shortly before noon each day a bank slip is prepared showing under the various heads of revenue the moneys in the hands of the shroffs awaiting banking. This the Cashier verifies by comparison with the totals shown in the Collection Books, and the money is banked early in the afternoon. If the amounts collected between the time of the preparation of the slip and the bank's closing hour are by reason of their amount considered to justify that course, a further payment in is made in the afternoon.
The total shown on each paying-in slip is posted to the Cash Book, and the several items shown on each paying-in slip are subsequently posted severally by the Book-keeping Branch under their respective heads of revenue in the Daily Abstract, whence the totals are carried daily to the Journal and monthly to the Ledger.
15. Owing to the early hour at which the bank closes, and to the time involved in the preparation and verification of bank slips, it most frequently occurs that all moneys received after noon remain in the hands of the various shroffs until the close of business.
The aggregate of the sums so remaining in their hands is usually considerable, and is seen from the Treasury records to have amounted on occasion to as much as $25,000.00. It is by no means unusual for individual shroffs to hold at the end of the day sums of $2,000.00 to $3,000.00, and the amount has on occasion been as large as $7,000.00.
16. At the end of each day a Balances Reconciliation Statement, an innovation intro- duced by Mr. Barton, is prepared, whereon the various shroffs show the amounts re- maining in their hands and the various Collection Book clerks show the amounts indi- cated by their books as having been collected after the daily banking. The Cashier com- pares the totals, and verifies the accuracy of the entries made by the Collection Book clerks. Each shroff then places the moneys in his hands in his own cash box, and these cash boxes are locked by the Senior Shroff in a safe in the strong room. The Cashier does not make a practice of checking at the close of each day the cash in the hands of each shroff, a procedure which would operate to make the Daily Balances Reconciliation a most valuable safeguard, but makes very occasional surprise checks of the cash in the hands of individual shroffs. His instructions from the Colonial Treasurer require him only to make checks every other month.
17. There are numerous obvious defects in this system:
This is a
(1) If there is collusion between the shroff and the Collection Book Clerk, moneys which are paid in need not necessarily be brought to account. contingency against which it is extremely difficult to provide.
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