Kursela Days 14 - Learning Banking

I had spent my probation days doing virtually nothing and had little idea as to how the branch accounting processes worked or for that matter how anything in the Bank functioned! On being posted as the Branch Accountant at Kursela I was directly responsible for the internal house-keeping of the branch. My first test happened about a month after I had joined the branch, by which time I had started living in Kursela. The Clean Cash Book (CCB) was normally checked by the Branch Manager, who invariably got delayed in returning to Purnea due to delays in writing up the CCB. Since, I had shifted to Kursela, the BM found it convenient to handover this responsibility to me as I had no compulsion, like him, to leave the branch early on a regular basis. I did not have the foggiest idea as to how was I to handle this task and what was I expected to do. I kept all my misgivings to myself and confidently told the BM that I would handle it. It was end of the work day, when I sat down with Ulta Seedha Choudhary, the messenger to do the CCB checking. The Branch Manager as usual had already left for Purnea. U S Choudhary’s role consisted in handing me the various subsidiary books from which the figures were taken for incorporation in the Clean Cash Book. Within minutes USC had realized that I was totally at sea. Without batting an eyelid, he started instructing me. See this figure comes from here and this figure comes from here. Here you tick with red pencil, here you put your initials, and check these totals, and finally put your full signature here. And this is how I passed my first big test.

Over the next month or so, as I became familiar with all the ledgers and subsidiary books, and was also led through the processes, very patiently by the Bade Babu (who we have met in Kursela Days – Bade Babu), the mysteries of the Clean Cash Book finally left me along with other esoteric nightmares like weekly reports, balancing, maintaining daily lists, progressive books, P Reports etc. etc.

How I envy present day bankers with their Core Banking Systems where none of this is required. But I am still surprised as to why do they need to sit at the branch till 11 pm every working day and also go to office to attend to pending work on holidays. Even with manual accounting very rarely I had to sit up late or go to office on holidays. The first time I did the Annual Closing work I did have to work through the night but the second time round, all work was wrapped up by 11 pm after which we had a grand feast at the branch before everybody went home and generally relaxed the next day.