| Description | Historically, the records of the Company's annual accounts were the responsibility of the two junior wardens, the Quarter and Renter Wardens. The accounting year ran from Midsummer to Midsummer. The records of income and expenditure were kept as charge and discharge accounts.
The Account books were supplemented by cash books, which survive from 1713.
The Company's first banker was appointed in 1766 - Messrs Hankey and Company in Fenchurch Street.
The accounting system was reformed in the same year with the arrival of Giles Crompe as Clerk. He replaced the Warden's Account books with a system of account books and ledgers.
In 1836, the reforms of Thomas Massa Alsager focused initially on the systems of accounting used by the Company (see the Report laid before the Court at its meeting on 7 December 1836). The Court required that the Trust accounts should be kept separately from those relating to the Company, a rough cash book should record daily movements of money and a general cash book and indexed ledger of all acounts should be established. The account books were to be shown to the Master and Wardens before each Court Meeting. The Sub-Committee of Audit was established and held its first meeting in 1837.
The Finance Committee met from 1871.
The full separation of Corporate and Trust Accounts did not result in separate record series until 1934/5, when cash books and ledgers began to be kept separately for each.
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