Cyclopedia of Commerce, Accountancy, Business Administration, v. 01 (of 10)American School of Correspondence
General
Cyclopedia of Commerce, Accountancy, Business Administration, v. 01 (of 10)
American School of Correspondence
Accounting; Business; Commerce
=Correspondence of Temporary Value.= Every large enterprise receives
a considerable amount of correspondence which has no permanent value.
Inquiries for catalogs in response to advertising are of no value
unless further correspondence is developed. It is advisable to set
aside sufficient space in the files, and file such correspondence
alphabetically, in miscellaneous folders. Later, when further
correspondence develops, separate folders can be made and transferred
to the regular files. After a reasonable time--when the follow-up
is abandoned--the inquiries can be destroyed, saving space in the
permanent files.
=Orders.= The manner of filing orders depends on the business and the
method of handling. It will depend on whether the greater part of the
orders are received direct from customers on their own blanks, on
blanks supplied by the house, or from salesmen on the blanks of the
house.
When orders are received direct from customers, whether in the form of
letters or on the customers' blanks, it is customary to copy them on
the house order blanks, from which orders are filled and billed. The
most practical disposition of customers' original orders is to file
them with their correspondence, instead of providing a special file
for them. There are certain exceptions, as subscriptions received by a
magazine and which, for certain reasons, should be kept by themselves;
but that outlined can be regarded as a general rule. One reason for
filing orders with the correspondence is that, in case of dispute, it
will very likely be necessary to refer to past correspondence.
The manner of filing the house blanks depends on the number of copies
made. Some houses make but two copies of the order--one to be sent to
the customer as an acknowledgment, and one from which the order is
filled. This leaves but one copy for the office, and this should be
filed numerically, which also brings it in the order of the date. If
the order copy is also used as a posting medium, it should be filed in
a loose-leaf binder; otherwise a vertical file drawer can be used.
Another very satisfactory method is to enter the order in
triplicate--one copy as an acknowledgment, an office copy, and a
shipping copy--leaving two copies for the files. One copy should
be filed numerically, the other alphabetically. This provides a
cross-index without the necessity of writing a card index, showing
how easy it is to provide valuable records by using ordinary care. A
complete order record is provided by making one extra copy, which is
done with no additional labor.
Orders received from salesmen on the house blanks are sometimes used as
a posting medium, in which case they are filed in a binder, by date.
Another method is to make the invoice in duplicate, and use one copy
as a posting medium. In such case, the copy of the order can be filed
alphabetically, bringing all orders from each customer together.
[Illustration: Fig. 23. Special Invoice Folder--Open _Browne-Morse Co._]
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