5. Accounting for system which provides that one person shall both purchase materials and give out supplies, furnishes an easy means of misappropriation of valuable material. The best safeguard is to allow only the purchasing agent to do the purchasing, and to have it understood that he must obtain requisitions approved by some one in authority; the stock clerk should be held strictly re sponsible for the supplies that are given out, and should honor only requisitions that are certified by the proper official.
Each requisition should be initialed by the person who receives the material, and the consumption of such material should also be accounted for in like manner, in order that there may be a complete check at all times on the transfers of material, and a very strong discouragement of any tendency that there may be to misappropriate. This system also enables the man agement to have materials on hand when they are needed, since it provides for a check on the amount consumed and for the filing of requisitions at a suffi ciently early date.
6. Imprest cash imprest cash system of managing petty cash largely eliminates the small thefts that occur in the handling of small disburse ments and in change-making. The purpose of this system is to prevent the petty cashier from receiving money from any one except the main cashier. He starts with the same amount of money in his cash drawer at the beginning of each accounting period, and is required to report at the end of the period. He classifies his expenditures by purposes (accounts affected), shows a receipt for each expenditure, and accounts for the remainder of his funds by showing the money itself.
The proof having been made, the chief cashier copies the report on the stub of a check, and gives the petty cashier a check for the exact amount of his disburse ments, thus restoring his fund to the original amount; then, in recording the check in the cash book, he debits directly the accounts that will be affected.
A variation of this idea is applied to the duties of the department petty cashier in a store; the method has been referred to above. Only in this latter case, the petty cashier merely receives money and checks and makes change. He begins operations with a given amount of change, a memorandum of which is made in triplicate. One copy is kept by the chief cashier as a receipt for the money, one 'copy is given the petty cashier to assist him in his proof, and the third goes to the accounting department.
The petty cashier tears off a cash coupon from each sales ticket and keeps it, the original goes to the ac counting department. If the petty cashier turns any money over to any other functionary before his final accounting is done, he takes a receipt, which is made in triplicate; one copy is retained by the recipient of the money, one copy is kept by the petty cashier himself, and one copy is sent to the accounting de partment.
In making his own proof, the petty cashier enters on one side a memorandum of the cash which he had at the beginning, and memoranda of any cash he may have received during the day, as well as a list of the cash coupons from the sales tickets. On the other side lie lists the receipts that he has taken for money turned over to other employes, and the amount of money which he finds left in his possession. The to tals of the two lists must agree.
In the accounting department a similar proof is made from the cash-sales tickets bearing the petty cashier's number and from the copies of the receipts described above. The important point in connection with the latter proof, which is the controlling one, is that the information comes from persons who have no incentive to give other than correct information.