Banking was Manual (Accounts Department - Books)

Each banks branch handled their own set of accounts. There will be a Department which handles all the accounting need of the branch. This included making out and maintaining a set of accounts of the bank branch. The Manager's 'pet staff' would normally get to do this job. At the end of the day, the staff will collect all vouchers, cheques, transfers and other transactions of the branch to come out with the Trial Balance of the Day. At the end of each month, they must come out with the complete set of the accounts for the branch.

The Trial Balance and the Balance Sheet will show the standing, profitability and the position of the bank branch. The staff are the ones who will check and determine that all transaction are of the correct amount and to the correct laid down accounts. Sometimes they may take days to balance a day's transaction; what more if it is at the end of the month where the number of transaction is higher due to additional entries not normally passed on a normal day, like interest charged, depreciation, revaluation, accruals and prepaids.

The most busy part of the year is when it is half-yearly or yearly closing. All accounts need to be closed and entered correctly in order to come out with the complete, correct and perfect Trial Balance and Balance Sheet of the branch. These accounts will be submitted to Head Office where it will be populated and compiled to determine the standing, profitability and position of the Bank. Besides the normal accounting reports, Accounting Department is responsible to submit all other branch's reports. They may take weeks to prepare these and would most of the time busted the date line for submission. However, these staff stand tall as their job is considered one of the most important job in the branch.

Now, with on-line accounting, straight through processing and auto uploading of entries to the main accounting system, the accounting job at the branch level have been eliminated. You could get any branch's Trial Balance or Balance Sheet at any time for any date from any terminal if you are authorised to do so.