Entries should be made as money is disbursed, with the proper vouchers for the same, to be turned in with the report.
Fig. 11. Record of Margin Balances to Protect the Customer's Account ]
The totals of the different accounts, having been entered in the general cash, are posted to the debit of their respective accounts in the general ledger.
In localities where cotton is largely dealt in, or where tobacco is largely dealt in, it may be necessary to add columns for the tobacco ledger or the cotton ledger in the general cash, but in localities where the transactions are not frequent, the accounts for such transactions and also the deals in provisions are carried in the grain ledger.
Any cash book sheet which should happen to be spoiled should be marked _void_ in red ink, and filed in its regular order with the other cash sheets, but _in no case should it be destroyed_.
=27.= It is as necessary in the brokerage business to know the condition of customers' accounts as it is in a bank, and perhaps a little more so, as fluctuations in the market may _wipe out_ his margin without his knowledge, and while it is not absolutely obligatory on the part of the broker to notify his customer, still it is very much to his interest to do so.
The margin clerk has the balance of each customer every morning. All orders to buy or sell received during the day pass through his hands and he makes the necessary memorandum against the customer's account. He keeps posted on the fluctuations of the market and immediately notifies the principals of any account which needs protection. After the trading for the day is finished, which on the board is 1:15 o'clock P.M. on any day except Saturday, and Saturday at 12:00 M., the margin clerk extends the balances of the various customers' accounts, these balances are checked by the bookkeeper from his accounts to prove their correctness, and a new list of the balances is made for the use of the margin clerk the following day.
This book is kept in most houses as a form of blotter, but the best form is a short sheet with numbered lines for the names of customers and a long sheet with similarly numbered lines divided into inch columns, with the balance column at the beginning and at the end, to be inserted under the short sheet, to care for the transactions of the day. By this means the names of customers will not have to be duplicated daily.