50 
OFFICE WORK OF A GARRISON BATTERY. 
Where much cash has to he kept in hand a proper safe ought to be 
bought, and it would probably amply repay the Major to do so. 
On the weekly pay day a cheque is drawn for sufficient cash to cover 
all the payments of the day (para. 7). For every payment a receipt 
is at once taken by signature in the cash book if possible, or in the 
mess and pay books, otherwise by separate receipts that are filed. 
Many payments entered in the cash book, and duly receipted there, 
have also to be supported by separate receipts to enable them to be 
passed in the Pay List; forage allowance for example. These receipts 
should be obtained at the time of payment, and be either placed on 
a special file, or else in a portfolio kept for all the Pay List vouchers. 
The Major himself receives all sums paid to the Battery, especially 
savings bank deposits: inattention to this rule makes many frauds 
possible (see para. 94). 
79. The Major accounts for the cash he has received as follows 
With the men, by means of the battery ledger and their account 
books. The Ledger contains all items of pay and allowances the 
men ought to receive: about these there can be little doubt or dispute; 
care only has to be taken that the same pay for every man is continued 
month after month that was entered in his No. 1 Report, or W.O. Form 97, 
when he joined the Battery, except when increased by promotion, 
two years’ service as N.C. officer and grants of Gr.C. Pay; or diminished 
by reductions and loss of badges. Any mistake as to the date of such 
casualties will inflict loss on either the man* or the Major. Against 
these credits go all the charges, each of which can be proved, pay issued 
and messing and washing by the mess and pay books, hospital 
stoppages by the roll, W.O. Form 152a, tailor’s and shoemaker’s charges 
by their bills, supported by the orders issued by the Pay-Sergeant 
to the man to get the work done, fines and deprivations of pay by 
the defaulter sheets, or W.O. Form 312 and 55, issues of necessaries by 
the necessaries ledger. As the ledger also contains all the entries of 
the man’s savings bank deposits and withdrawals, it acts as a check 
on the S.B. ledger. The ledger is signed monthly by the man and 
by the Major, and its result, or the man’s balance, is entered in his 
account book; and the entry is signed by the man, unless he is in 
credit, when the Major signs. When a man is in hospital, and has 
so missed signing his accounts, he should be visited in hospital, and 
got to sign his accounts there, so as not to have two months uncertified. 
Here note that the soldier’s account book should never be taken from 
him; he should attend with it whenever any entry has to be made, 
otherwise he may plead ignorance of it if it tells against him, and 
he has not signed it. 
80. The only other direct cash dealings with the men are the 
savings bank accounts (see para. 23 and 58). Here every item is 
supported by a receipt in the man’s account book, the S.B. ledger, 
the S.B. Form No. 2 (W.O. Form 382), and the cash book, as 
well as the entry in the battery ledger. The man has in his book 
the Major’s receipt for all deposits, and his acknowledgment of the 
