INTERPRISE AND BANKING

The economic functions of banks include:

A banker or bank is a financial institution whose primary activity is to act as a payment agent for customers, and to borrow and lend money.
The first modern bank was founded in Italy in Genoa in 1406, its name was Banco di San Giorgio (Bank of St. George).
Many other financial activities were added over time. For example banks are important players in financial markets and offer financial services such as investment funds. In some countries such as Germany, banks are the primary owners of industrial corporations while in other countries such as the United States banks are prohibited from owning non-financial companies. In Japan, banks are usually the nexus of cross share holding entity known as zaibatsu. In France "Bancassurance" is highly present, as most banks offer insurance services (and now real estate services) to their clients.

Organizations move to Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) payments to take advantage of reduced per item costs, to streamline in-house processing and to meet the demands of suppliers. Online Banking Agreements (OBA) are typically required to enable EFT, and these agreements also give organizations the ability to transfer funds between accounts, to download transaction information for import to accounting software and to monitor cash position. Unfortunately, for a certain size of non-profit entity, EFT and OBA strike down traditional internal controls on access to funds. Board Members and Treasurers of smaller non-profits that have a requirement for two signatures on cheques, may want to review internal control systems when contemplating OBA or EFT. The following two situations are interesting; the first is based on the private foundation where I work, and the second occurred at a social service organization where I volunteer.
Two-signature control

Although The Muttart Foundation is the largest private foundation in our funding area, we have a small administrative staff and a requirement for two signatures on all cheques. The internal staff member that signs cheques does not prepare the cheque run or reconcile the bank. The second signature and review of our paper cheques by an external board member (usually the Treasurer) is an important control step that provides protection for both the Foundation and for staff. With high hopes for increased efficiency of grant delivery, we examined the feasibility of EFT for our grant payments and general payables.

At least our business bank and one other (my personal bank) issue a single master password for OBA, with full authority for all banking transactions. Although subordinate levels of access and control may be delegated to users, one individual must hold the master password. Neither bank that I spoke with had contemplated, or would entertain the thought of, a dual password level of control. The omnipotent master password system may be OK for an organization that is large enough for true separation of duties in file transfer, file preparation and bank reconciliation, where other staff members act as the internal reviewers, but in a small agency, it wholly sidesteps the intent of the two-signature control step.

Internal control is not just about fraud prevention; a good control system should also catch errors. The error of sending the wrong amount by EFT can be reasonably controlled through the usual cheque run control procedures and does not require additional steps. Controlling the error of incorrect transit numbers requires detailed paperwork from our grantees and attentive re-keying on our part. The most reliable control here would be a separate automated control master file comparing agency names to transit numbers; such a step requires extra attention and staff time to maintain an additional database.

The error of sending the right amount to the wrong recipient is not so easily managed. We have many grantees with very similar names, if they happen to use the same bank, the transit numbers can look the same to a human scanner, with few clues to pick up the error before the funds are deposited. A paper cheque issued to the wrong recipient should be caught by our signers, the receptionist sending the correspondence that normally accompanies the cheque, or by the recipient before deposit. We concluded that EFT would increase the potential for error and any new internal controls would require more effort yet be inevitably less reliable than our current system of paper cheques.

Executive enthusiasm
EFT privileges are a subset of overall OBA. While I was looking into the possibilities offered by EFT for grant payments, a mail-out brochure promoting the advantages of OBA landed on the Executive Director’s desk at an agency where I volunteer.
The advantages of online access were immediately obvious to someone who deals with multiple bank accounts, short-term investments of restricted funds, and temporary fund shortages. The disadvantages are internal control issues that were not so apparent to a busy Executive Director and a Board with social issues on its plate. For this agency, with its small administrative staff, online access is just not appropriate. OBA may be presented to a naïve Board (or the Treasurer alone) with the objectives of saving time and gaining up-to-date information, without serious analysis of the powers associated with a master administrative password.
At the very least, before such agreements are signed, the banking bylaws of the society should be reviewed to ensure a proper separation of access to funds and the responsibility for bank account reconciliation – maybe it’s time for an Assistant Treasurer? Also, major funding agreements, especially those with governments, health authorities or gaming commissions, should be examined to ensure continued compliance with required financial controls.
Janice LeDuc, CMA, is an accountant at The Muttart Foundation.

A transactional account (North America: checking account or chequing account,[1] United Kingdom and some other countries: current account or cheque account) is a deposit account held at a bank or other financial institution, for the purpose of securely and quickly providing frequent access to funds on demand, through a variety of different channels. Because money is available on demand these accounts are also referred to as demand accounts or demand deposit accounts.
Transactional Account or Demand Deposit Account (DDA) or Current Account is primarily meant for businessmen, firms, companies, public enterprises etc. that have numerous daily banking transactions. Current Accounts are meant neither for the purpose of earning interest nor for the purpose of savings but only for convenience of the business, hence they are non-interest bearing accounts. In a Current Account, a customer can deposit any amount of money any number of times and permit unlimited number of withdrawals, subject to availability of funds.

Enterprise (titled Enterprise prior to season three) is a science fiction television program created by Brannon Braga and Rick Berman set in the Star Trek universe created by Gene Roddenberry. The series follows the adventures of humanity's first Warp 5 starship, Enterprise, ten years before the United Federation of Planets shown in previous Star Trek incarnations was formed.
Enterprise premiered on September 26, 2001. The pilot episode, "Broken Bow", takes place in the year 2151, halfway between the 21st century events shown in the movie Star Trek: First Contact and the original Star Trek television series.
Low ratings prompted UPN to cancel Star Trek: Enterprise on February 2, 2005, but the network allowed the series to complete its fourth season; the final episode aired on May 13, 2005. After a run of four seasons and 98 episodes, it was the first Star Trek series since the original Star Trek to have been cancelled by its network rather than finished by its producers. It is also the last series in an 18 year run of back-to-back new Star Trek shows beginning with Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987.