UNIVERSITY ACCOUNTING

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30157, 14 June 1963, Page 13

UNIVERSITY ACCOUNTING

Machine Will Save Time

Dramatic savings in time will be made possible with the installation of high-speed accounting machinery in the registrar*# office at Canterbury University. Examination lists and many other statistics will be able to be printed at the push of a button once the punched card system to feed the machine has been completed. » The deputy registrar (administration) Mr S. McColl, put the machine through its paces 'yesterday as examination lists for this year were begun. As a demonstration, one-seventh of the list of students and their examination subjects was sorted and printed in less than an hour —a job which would have taken two days in normal office routine. The introduction of the machine would keep the administrative staffing static for approximately four years, and the machine would be paid for, in terms of saving in staff, within six years, Mr McColl said. The machine works in coded numbers corresponding to subjects and degree stages. Annual statistics required by the Department of Education would be produced simply as a by-product from other punched cards, and save a member of the office staff at least six weeks’ work, Mr McColl said. The only hurdle was the preparation of punched cards to begin the university records, but from 1964 this would be done much earlier in the university year. Results cards from examinations could be printed for issue much more quickly after marking of the papers was finished, and the registrar’s staff would be saved from all other office “housework,” freeing them for more important work.