This Week In Our "Epic Battles" Series: Me Vs. the Campus Accounting System

For anyone who has the opportunity to be treasurer of one of the registered student organizations... um... don't. So much paperwork. All has to be filled out exactly right. There's a page-long form to get reimbursements, and all the original receipts have to be included so they can make sure you're not buying booze. No fair zeroxing the receipts. And they have to be taped (not stapled; I stapled once and they yelled at me) to a separate clean white page (no scratch paper allowed) which is in turn stapled to the form. It then gets hand-carried (not mailed or electronically submitted) to the RSO office for processing. The reimbursement check is available a week later.

This I've been doing for about a month now, and I've got it more or less down... it used to take me 15 minutes to fill out the form, now I'm down to 5. But what's really fun, which I did for the first time this week, is making deposits. Any time there's a fundraising event (we had our etiquette dinner... that's a whole 'nother story) ALL of the proceeds have to be deposited to our on-campus account. First off, endorsing checks. I write out the full name of the organization ("Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society"... all of it, not just "Tau Beta Pi"... I did that once and they yelled at me), the account number, which is 20-odd digits long, then I sign. Checks are itemized and totaled using the adding machines (Look, Bart, adding machines!!) in the RSO office, then it goes to the deposit window. Fortunately there weren't many checks. Now, this didn't happen, but if there are enough bills or coins, they have to be bundled and rolled. No clue how to do that. Now, you get the deposit slip at the deposit window and fill it out there. Not sure why. Seems like something that would make for a nasty line, but there wasn't anyone in front of me. Then, it's pretty much a standard bank transaction, except you have to take the receipt back to the RSO office to prove you made your deposit. Otherwise they get really mad.

Now, dues don't have to go into the campus account, so they get deposited at the local bank. Those checks get endorsed with just "Tau Beta Pi," "For Deposit Only," and our account number. We even have a rubber stamp. Except our account number changed since the stamp was made, so I have to write that on. Then they go to the commerical accounts window, which is very fast because they don't check my math. They should probably check my math. I now know for a fact that there is only room for 13 checks on a deposit slip, so all the dues checks spill onto two. I definitely counted one twice on my first attempt, but I caught it. So that's all done for this semester, at least.

That said, I'm more than happy to take the job next year, unless Accounting tells me to fold one of the forms into a 5-pointed star (3-way folding I can do) before turning it in. Then all bets are off. And I wouldn't put it past them.