Re: [tlug] Accounting Systems and Speed of Reconciliation

[Brett Robson <tlug@example.com>]

Alexei Anisimov wrote:
> I have a question - how come other banks manage to stay opened for 
> customers longer - do they really make their employees to stay late 
> till 7-8 pm (until they close the day) on a regular basis? Or do they 
> just have things set up somehow different?


Each day every system has to be reconciled with the other systems; the 
entire bank is closed off and the general ledger is balanced, ie a 
balance sheet is created. The easiest way of doing this is to close off 
the business day at a certain time. In a more sophisticated environment 
each system has it's own business day and it closes off at it's own 
time. In this environment each transaction has to record the date of of 
each system it passes through and can appear on different business days 
for different systems. This makes the systems and procedures a lot more 
complex. Of course it can be done, but it's only competition that causes 
banks to make these changes.

Brett