That evening, everyone had originally planned to have dinner together after finishing the card game, but Joanna ultimately chose to leave early.
Before the end of the workday, she hurried to the Charitable Foundation's office.
She wanted to check the foundation's current accounts.
At present, informatization was still only a concept—or not even that—so banks everywhere prohibited deposits and withdrawals across banks.
If someone wanted to deposit money at Bank A and withdraw it from Bank B, they had to make an appointment in advance.
From a business perspective, large trade transactions generally used drafts and promissory notes, with promissory notes being more common.
Cash checks and transfer checks had to be recounted and recalculated during the evening's summary, with the updates made the following day.
Aside from calling the bank directly, there was basically no way to accurately check the accounts for large same-day movements of funds.
Businesses also kept their own books, but they did not need to know exactly how much money they had, down to the second decimal place.
They only needed to know roughly how much they had.
This was also why the Federation saw so many financial fraud cases every year. Delayed communication of information meant that even some rather unsophisticated scams could deceive many people.
For example, emergency orders after the bank had closed, payment by check...
By the time Joanna made her request, the bank was more or less closed for the day, and she did not stress the need to verify it with the bank.
The accountant did not make an issue of it either and simply gave her an approximate figure.
"Ms. Joanna, we have roughly six million left in our accounts."
This made her breathe a sigh of relief. Six million—after losing 1.4 million, she would still have 4.6