To the Shareholders:
Your Treasurer submits herewith the accounts of fourteen years spent keeping other people's money honest. During the year under review I supervised a treasury of $4.2 million across three subsidiaries and closed the annual books in 9 working days, against 16 days in the prior year. Collections improved and no auditor found cause for a qualified opinion. The office coffee remains the only line item I have failed to improve.
The Board will note that surplus was applied chiefly to two purposes: the retirement of costly short-term borrowing, and the training of four junior clerks, of whom three now balance their own ledgers without supervision. Management considers both applications sound.
| Cash management & short-term paper | 14 yrs |
| Double-entry bookkeeping, by hand and by machine | 14 yrs |
| Bank negotiation (lines to $600,000) | 9 yrs |
| Bond amortization schedules | 8 yrs |
| Payroll administration, 340 names | 7 yrs |
| Comptometer operation, certified | 6 yrs |
| Total Assets | Ample |
| Impatience with round-number estimates | Chronic |
| Refusal to close a day out of balance, even at 7 p.m. | Habitual |
| Reserve for pencils worn to the ferrule | Nominal |
| Total Liabilities | Small |
| Year | Declaration | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| 1921 | Certificate, Comptometer School of Chicago, first in class of 42 | 6% |
| 1924 | Elected member, Chicago Association of Credit Men | 6% |
| 1926 | Note refunding commended by resolution of the Board, entered in the minutes | 7% |
| 1928 | Invited to read a paper, "The Columnar Trial Balance," before the Cook County Bookkeepers' Society | 7% |
Bryant & Stratton Business College, Chicago. Diploma in Accounts and Commercial Law, 1914.
Comptometer School of Chicago. Operator's certificate, 1921.
Banking and audit references furnished upon request in writing to the office of the Treasurer, 228 S. La Salle Street.
All figures herein subject to examination; the books are open.