170 SECRETARIAL PRACTICE

Periodical
Summaries
and
Analyses.

Depart-
mental
Analvses.

the foreign branches take the form (so frequent nowadays)
of subsidiary companies registered in the country in which
they trade, except that in these cases the directors of the
subsidiary company will release the balance of funds in the
first or No. 1 account as and when need arises.

It may be taken as a rule that the larger the business the
secretary has to control, the more difficult it will be to keep
in touch with details, and it is therefore to the advantage of
the secretary to devise forms and synopses which, while they
arise logically out of the work of departments and do not
add to it more than is absolutely necessary, shall give the
secretary, and through him the directors, a condensed view
of all that happens. In regard to cash there can be no more
important or helpful document than an analysis of the cash
books, bringing together of course the details of whatever
number of cash books may be in use. This document should
be prepared each month, beginning and ending with the
combined bank balances shown on the cash books. These
balances will naturally be checked by the secretary with
the pass books and the cashier's agreements thereof.

The details of receipts may be briefly sub-divided according
to the needs of the business, either into classes of goods sold,
or geographically into the districts in which the sales are
made.

The expenditure should also be classified so as to show
the monthly expenditure on salaries, wages, raw materials
‘with any sub-analysis which may be necessary), freight, and
so on, according to the nature of the business. In manu-
facturing concerns a useful subsidiary figure is the average
number of workmen who earned the wages shown, and this
can, if necessary, be further sub-divided into classes of goods.
made, or (if more convenient to the needs of directors) into.
shop departments. A refinement of great utility is to combine
in this main analysis the sub-analysis of amounts spent
through the petty cash, instead of showing merely the amounts
paid over to the cashier for petty cash purposes. This
will necessitate bringing in the petty cash balance at the
beginning and end of each month.

A combination of the twelve monthly analyses here described
will provide an invaluable document, forming a chart of what
may be called the financial circulatory system of the business.

The immediate duties of the secretary in connection with
accounts and cognate branches of his business must depend
largely on the size of that business and the method and
perfection of its organisation. In most companies the
accountant, the sales manager, the works manager, the