Pennsylvania Railroad Company. Accounting Dept.

Accounting activities on the PRR were originaly handled by the Second Dept. The reorganization of December 1, 1852, created separate Treasurer's and Auditor's Departments, with the latter performing all accounting, purchases of real estate, and title searches. The Auditor's Dept. was renamed the Accounting Dept. on January 1, 1858. Real estate activities were moved to a separate Real Estate Dept. on July 1, 1874.

The Accounting Dept. was one of the basic staff departments of the PRR and functioned with relatively few changes for a full century after 1858. After 1874, the department was headed by the Comptroller, assisted by an ever-expanding staff of functionally-specialized auditors. The department's primary job was to perform the functions of an in-house auditor, auditing all of the records of receipts and disbursements and the books of the Treasury Dept. It also kept a separate set of account books, parallel to those of the Treasurer, until 1925, when the Comptroller's books became the sole general account books for the company. The Accounting Dept. also collected, computed, and distributed all general and operating statistics and prepared the returns required by state regulatory agencies and the Interstate Commerce Commission.

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