NRS-15820 | Voucher or claims registers [Municipality of Balmain]

Voucher or Claims Registers were initially required to be created under s. 120 - 121 and Schedule V1 of the 1906 Municipal Accounting regulations (1), and subsequent accounting regulations. S.120 required the maintenance of Voucher or Claims Registers, in order to record the particulars of all invoices for the supply of goods and services to the council. A consecutive number was to be allocated to each invoice or account recorded in the registers. S.121 specified that the council should make an entry in the appropriate columns in the register indicating the date of payment of the accounts.The Voucher or Claims registers were maintained in a double page format recording the following information: Voucher number, (numbered consecutively for each year) date of registration, the date of supply of goods or services, goods number, job number order, (consecutive) claimant, particulars (type of goods supplied), amount of voucher, fund and account chargeable, referred for certificate to (a particular council officer), date returned certified on, date paid, cash book folio, and amount paid. The Cash Book folio is only recorded in some of the registers in this series.The municipal accounting regulations do not specify the process of entering information contained in the registers into the main accounting system. However, the amount of each voucher/claim and the voucher/claim number contained in the registers was entered regularly into the Cashbooks (see NRS 15818). This information was then posted into General Ledgers. Ledgers form part of a standard public sector accounting system. This system generally comprised Cash Books, Journals (General and Subsidiary), and Ledgers (General and Subsidiary). Income and expenditure recorded by the Voucher or Claims Registers were accredited through the General Ledger into the General Fund. The Council also maintained other funds such as loans and trust funds. Under Schedule 1 of the 1908 Municipal Accounting Regulations (2), accounts were classified into General Purpose (G.P) Public Works (P.W), Public Service (P.S), Health Administration (H.A) and Shire Property. The accounts chargeable in the Voucher or Claims registers were classified according to Schedule 1.Custody History This series was in the custody of Mitchell library until December 2001 when it was transferred to State Records NSW under section 29 of the State Records Act, 1998End Notes (1) NSW Government Gazette 28 November, 1906 p. 6446 – 6460(2) NSW Government Gazette 19 November, 1908 p. 6131 – 6135