Holographic news from Berlin; [News items];

              Bulletin HASKINS & SELLS 5
Holographic News from Berlin
WE have received a very interesting
letter from Mr. Kracke, who re­cently
supervised the opening of our prac­tice
office in Berlin, Germany, and who is
acting temporarily as resident partner at
that office. In his letter Mr. Kracke de­scribes,
entertainingly and illuminatingly,
some of the German business and financial
usages, many of which differ considerably
from our own.
The German business man, for ex­ample,
notifies his various depositaries
every day as to the details of all checks
drawn on such depositaries during the
day, in order that an improperly drawn
check may not be paid. The banks, in
turn, send each depositor a daily state­ment
of the checks paid during the day,
giving for each check the number, name
of payee, amount, etc. The banks then
retain the cancelled checks as receipts for
the disbursement of their funds. Differ­ences
such as these necessitate some
change in certain phases of American audit
procedure, in order fully to cover the
situation.
There is evidently widespread misin­formation
throughout Germany as to the
status of the accountancy profession in
America. Mr. Kracke writes of a re­cently
published German text-book on
bookkeeping and auditing which creates
the impression that the bulk of our pro­fessional
work is done by "incorporated
concerns of accountants which practice
accountancy on a large scale." Our own
firm is cited, apparently as an exception to
to the general rule, as an example of a
partnership with unlimited liability, which
"employs a personnel of no less than