Filling a petty cash voucher

1st July , 2015
Today is the beginning of a new chapter in my life. My first day as a working class citizen. Woke up a little tired, 6am to be precise, had my bath, wore my clothes and set out to take public transport to my place of work. On getting to obalende, I was dropped before the normal bus-stop and I missed the way. I panicked a little, but on asking around I was able to set myself right back on track. I got to the office around 7.30, waiting eagerly to impress my new colleagues; my hands were itching for some work. The very sweet and beautiful receptionist met me waiting at the reception and directed me to the human resource manager.

On getting to his office, he welcomed me and immediately dropped the bomb shell that I was being assigned to the financial control unit. I was devastated, this was disheartening. I guess I was put there because I am an Accounting graduate. My aim is to break into the investment management circle; doing investment research, and then progressing into portfolio management. Anyhow, I said to myself, this is to garner experience, i can always break into investment management after my Nysc year. Besides I would learn a lot in the management and financial statement preparation of a pension fund.

I was taken round the building and introduced to each employee all at the same time. The human resource manager was dishing out their names to me in split seconds, and I swear that I didn’t grasp more than 20 names….lol… too many names and faces to process all at once. I was introduced to the unit i would be working in (financial control) last. There was no space in the financial control unit, so I was told to sit down in the marketing department’s office just nearby; mehn did those guyz look like crazy fun people. My first task on the job was to fill the petty cash voucher.

what is petty cash?

Petty cash is money set aside for expenditure on small items such as in-house courier services (e.g daily transportation by the clerk of the company to deliver statements), staple pins, A4 paper, and so on usually not exceeding a predetermined price. In my office, the limit is 5000 naira. Anything below 5,000 naira is handled with the petty cash; but for anything above this price, a cheque requisition form is drawn up.

What is a petty cash voucher?

A petty cash voucher is a small form used to document disbursements from a petty cash fund. The main aims are to authorize and substantiate all petty cash disbursements, and to provide an official receipt of payment from the recipient of all petty cash disbursements. They are usually numbered serially for internal control and documentation purposes.

I was handed some cash claims/retirement form, which contained the original entry and approval of the disbursement of cash, and then I was given a petty cash voucher form to fill in the details, detach it and then staple it together. In the petty cash voucher, there are two forms for each number, a white and blue. When you write on the white, it is super imposed unto the blue; so to prevent it getting to other forms, you put a thick paper under the single pair of white and blue form. Then you detach the white and attach it to the cash expense/cash claim form.

The petty cash voucher consists of firstly the date, which is the date for the disbursement of cash. The second entry is the purpose or description; that should be filled based on the company’s policy. The next entry is the a journal entry which is usually started with the phrase “being payment for”. After this, you put in the amount of cash paid both in figures and in word. Below this is the payment validation section. It consists of
1) Cash request by? (Here you put the name of the claimant)
2) Prepared by (Name of the person preparing it)
3) Originating Dept (In this case the head of department signs an approval for the cost, then you put down his department)
4) After this I submitted it and a senior financial control officer was to sign for the validation).

Example of a petty cash voucher:

I filled 74 of this on the very first day of work, just to show them that I am up for the challenge. I pray as I continue, God would give me wisdom and knowledge and I shall be able to keep up and perform excellently well on the job.

 

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Silvine Petty Cash Voucher Pad Book, 100 sheets