I am the quartermaster! Mistress! THINGY!

It seems like in every guild I fall into, at some point I end up the guild bank officer.  Maybe it's because people trust me with their resources, or they think I'm highly organized, or they assume that because I'm a librarian I can keep track of their crap...  In all fairness, it's probably because it's a seriously shitty but important job, and I spend so much time farming for guild resources I get cranky when I suspect things are being mishandled.  Looking at it that way, the most likely answer is that I've been appointed guild bank officer because people were tired of hearing me bitch about withdrawal limits, deposit quotas, and rank permissions.

Bank officer's a thankless, messy job, like being on loot council, or the DKP officer, or god help you the keeper of the call list.  Most of the time people don't notice you, until they hear that dreaded little word: "No."  Then you become the worst human being on the planet, a loot whore, a killer of kittens, and an eater of babies.  The meltdowns that follow someone being told they no can haz are the stuff of legend.  The trick is to establish early-on that you can and will say no, and then find ways to minimize how much you actually have to deny people what they want.

I've run a few different in/out systems.  In Tactical Dysfunction, the going rule is basically "if it's there, it's up for grabs."  We're a small guild, we all farm obsessively, and we've been playing together so long that we know the folks we're hanging with aren't greedy twatwaffles.  In Reckless Embrace it's more amorphous, though we're approaching that small, tight dynamic at least in our raiding core.  In general, though, I look at how much a person is contributing, how often they make requests, the kinds of things they ask for...  And yes, I stalk my guildmates on the auction house.  Daily.  This isn't always a problem, but when you've got a lot of blanket recruiting, blind inviting, or just random people wanting to join you it's always a good habit to maintain- at least until you know you can trust that person not to be a douche.

The wonkiest system I've ever run was when Rift first came out, because there was no guild bank utility at all.  I had a MASSIVE google docs spreadsheet that I embedded right on our guild website (with only officers flagged with edit privileges) to track deposits, withdrawals, inventory... all that good stuff.  Behind the scenes it was a royal clusterfuck, because bank and inventory were so limited initially over there.  We had a network of officer bank alts, circulating the guild inventory by mail.  Potions and pot ingredients were stored with our consumable officer's alt, I had tailoring materials and coin, someone else had metals and wood...  All of THAT was tracked on a second googledocs spreadsheet, which we kept hidden from the masses.  It was clunky as hell, but it worked.  As long as someone remembered to update the spreadsheet each time there was a transaction.

It took a lot of getting used to.

Anyway, when I'm setting up my bank management systems (assuming I'm not walking into someone else's shitstain when I get promoted) I usually look at the following:

• How big is the guild?  Simple, important first question.  If you've got a small guild, and everyone knows everyone else, odds are you don't have to put a lot of time into tracking ins and outs.  The larger the guild, the more moving parts you've got to track, and the more time it will take.  Also, larger guilds are more likely to have random riffraff that are just there to try to take advantage.  You get more random people with no attachment to the guild, and those guys are a bank officer's worst nightmare.
• How active is the guild?  If you've only got two or three people on outside of raid nights, you're going to have to be more heavy-handed with your restrictions on the guild bank.  Basically, if your demand exceeds your supply, there will be problems.  And as much as your dedicated core say they're cool with supplying the guild, keeping those people active and happy means going "Yeah, I appreciate that, but people need to not abuse your awesomeness."  
• How big is your bank?  What you hold onto and how much of it you keep around is going to depend heavily on how big your bank is.  If you only have a hundred slots, you can't keep a stack of every crafting material for every tradeskill at every level.  It's not feasible.  Once you know how much space you have to work with, you can move on to prioritizing your stockpile.
• What do we NEED?  The hardest question in the lot.  If you're raiding, you need consumables.  How much do you need per week?  How important is it to have extras available?  If you're in a large guild, you might have a raid leader, or a consumables officer to help you with this.  If the whole mess has been dumped in your lap by your teary-eyed guild leader who's begging you to fix things...  You're probably on your own.  My usual rule of thumb is "a pair, a spare, and one to wear."  That is to say: what I need for tonight's raid, what I need for the next raid, and mats enough to make more if something comes up.  In WoW, this equated to an entire bank tab full of herbs, and ten of each flask/stat potion (until we got the cauldrons).  Managing our feasts was easier, because it takes fewer raws.  Consider things like rare raid drops, tradeable gear, and quality of life items.
• How much money do we need?  Guild repairs, guild hall rent, filling in the gaps on consumables, subsidizing guild crafter costs...  It all adds up.  The more services your guild wants to provide for its members, the more money they need to cough up.  In some games, you can collect a tax automatically every time a guild member loots a body.  In other games, you're reliant on donations, or on "guild runs" where all drops go to the guild bank and the guild merchant.  Each method is going to require different kinds of tracking, but it's important to make it clear to members that if the money's not there, the guild can't do what they want it to do.
• What to do with gear?  Gear drops are always problematic.  From a simple space-saving standpoint, they don't stack, so every item you hold onto is anywhere from 5-1000 things you can't keep set by instead.  Also, these pieces are often the most valuable things in your bank.  It's usually a good idea to discuss with your fellow officers early-on whether the guild will be holding onto any loot at all, or selling them to other players for guild money.  Most of my banks have had at least half a tab dedicated to current-tier, high-end tradeable weapons and armor.  
• How do I handle permissions?  Most guild bank systems set permissions by tab and member rank.  When you're getting your bank sorted and your inventory managed you'll want to at least have a rough idea of what things you want to make easily accessible and which you want to restrict more.  Until you've got your policies ironed out with your GM/Officers' Council, it's a good idea to be the tyrannical overmistress of the bank.  Because most game bank setups are tied into rank, a nice long sitdown with your GM is unfortunately unavoidable.

Okay!  So I've covered my usual, dithery starting points for working out the bank.  Tomorrow I'll go into the gory details, including what your guild leader needs to hook you up with, how to select the best cattle prod for your raiders, and how not to be a douchebag.