Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

534 HISTORY OF THE BANKthe Canadian Bankers' Association. When the latter werefirst issued in 1898 1 arrangements had been made to returnall paid money orders to the issuing branch in the samemanner as a cheque on another branch. Such items werelisted on a slip known as a Cash Item List, or later on as aCheque List, so that one entry only was necessary for the totalamount of the list. After payment, drafts were now no longerdebited, as before, in Head Office Account to the issuing branch,and this change removed a large number of entries from thataccount. A year later, on February 1, 1902, a radical changein the old system was announced, to go into effect on March 1following. A new account to be called Cash Items Accountwas to be opened in the general ledger of each branch, andto this account all items which had in the past been charged toanother branch through the Head Office Account were to bedebited, while awaiting advice of payment. This advice ofpayment was termed an "At Credit slip." All items for creditof another branch were to be entered on an "At Credit slip" bythe crediting branch, and at the end of the day this slip was tobe totalled and despatched to the branch interested, to be usedby it in turn as a debit to the branch issuing it. The details ofevery slip were recorded in the cash-book of the creditingbranch, or a clear carbon copy might be retained among thevouchers, but only the totals were extended and debited tohead office and entered in the Head Office Advice List. Whenthese changes had come into effect, apart from the few entriesintended for the head office itself,the Advice and RemittanceList contained merely the totals of the"At Credit slips" sent toand received from other branches. The only particularsrequired were the name of the branch and the amount of the"At Credit slip," and in the case of "At Credit slips" receivedthe date of the voucher. Thus the same voucher was used bya crediting branch as an advice of an amount credited toanother branch and by the receiving branch as a debit to thecrediting branch. As far as possible only one credit slip was'See Head Office circular dated September 17, 1898.