Some banks supply a form of pass book specially made for the purpose of deposit accounts where receipts are not given. The book is ruled, practically, in the same way as the book issued by the Post Office Savings Bank. Each item must be initialled by the cashier and the book must be presented every time that a transaction takes place.
In some banks, particularly in London, all paid vouchers are returned to the customer each time the pass book is written up and given to him.
In many banks the pass books are num bered consecutively and a register of them is kept. Whenever a new pass book is com menced, a note of it is made in the register, against the number of the book, the date and the name of the account being recorded.
A pass book and a deposit receipt are the two principal guides by which the outside public can judge of the quality of the clerical work of a bank office, and if either of them is negligently written it reflects upon all the staff of the office, and is apt to give the bank an undesirable reputation for carelessness. The three essential characteristics of a good pass book clerk are accuracy, neatness, and rapidity.
Pass books should be sorted in alpha betical order so that when any are asked for they can be found at once, and they should be kept well written up to date. In fact, the transactions of one day ought to be entered in all the pass books on hand not later than the following day. When a pass book is asked for by a customer it should, before being parted with, be examined with the ledger, the two sides cast up in pencil and the balance compared. A note should be made in ink in the ledger of the date when the book is given out, together with the initials of the clerk responsible for the accuracy of the book ; this note is usually made on the line of the last ledger entry which has been put into the pass book.
It saves time, and is very convenient, if the folio of the ledger on which the cus tomer's account appears, is noted on the back of the pass book, or some place where it can be quickly seen.
Some banks have a notice printed at the beginning of the book, or on the back, re questing the customer to send in the book at certain intervals, say weekly or monthly, to be written up, and also to leave it with the bank at the end of each half-y_ear to be balanced.
Some banks have a recognised rule not to enter up a pass book while a customer waits, but to send it to him by post as soon as possible or to retain it till he calls again.
The practice in some banks of entering only the credit items when a book is brought in, and is waited for, is not a desirable one, as it does not give a proper statement of the position of the customer's account. It is much better to advise the customer to leave the pass hook in order that it may be fully written up to date. If the customer wishes an acknowledgment for the money paid to credit, instead of entering it in the pass book when received, some bankers give the cus tomer a duplicate credit slip initialled, or they initial the counterfoil of the customer's paying-in slip book. Credits should not, as a rule, be entered in a pass book before they are posted in the ledger.
Where a customer lives abroad, it is some times more convenient to send him, instead of a pass book, a copy of his account written upon sheets of paper ruled in the same way as a pass book ; these are known as " pass sheets " or " statements of account." In some cases a list of the Bank Holidays is shown at the front of the pass book, with the information that " Bills of Exchange falling due on Good Friday and Christmas Day are payable on the previous day ; those due on the other holidays being payable on the following day." Most banks supply on the fly-leaf of their pass books a list of their branches, principal correspondents, and, in the case of country banks, the name of their London agents.
A notice which is sometimes printed in pass books is to the effect that cheques paid in to a customer's credit cannot be drawn against until they are cleared.
Where a pass book is alleged to be lost, it is well to wait some time before granting a duplicate, as a further search by the cus tomer will probably discover the book. 'When the book really cannot be found, the manager usually issues a new one ; it should be plainly marked " duplicate," and a note should be made against the account in the ledger, stating the reason why a duplicate has been given and the date of its issue, as well as a record made of the fact in the pass book register. 'Where a pass book is lost, some bankers require that an indemnity be given before a duplicate is issued.