In a strictly trading business, such items as power, heat and light, insurance and taxes—usually a manufacturing expense—become administrative expense. These, and all similar items, are grouped under the head of miscellaneous, to be distributed over all divisions of commercial costs.
In the main, the different divisions of administrative costs are easily assembled. In each division there is the salary of the department head, the total of which is charged to the division, and a correct apportionment of salaries which must be divided among two or more divisions. For illustration, the salaries of stenographers are distributed as has already been explained. By far the larger part of this expense is charged to the advertising and sales departments, but from the weekly reports of this division, the amount to be charged to the executive, accounting, credit and collection, and purchasing divisions may be obtained.
Mailing Costs. In the division of office expense one item which must be distributed, at least between sales and administrative, is mailing expense. Mailing expense is made up of labor and postage, the latter being most important.
All enterprises of magnitude maintain a separate mailing department in charge of one person, frequently the chief stenographer. The very fact that postage is the big item of expense in the mailing room, makes a very complete system of records absolutely essential.
The work of the mailing room consists of folding circulars and letters, enclosing catalogs, circulars, and letters in envelopes, addressing, filling in dates and addresses on printed form letters, and stamping. Sometimes addressing and filling in is done in the stenography division, but the more usual plan is to consider this a part of the mailing expense.
Fig. 12. A Report of Labor in the Mailing Room
Of first importance is a record of work done, which is best secured by means of a daily report of the work of each clerk. All work should be assigned by the head of the department, and the clerk required to keep an accurate record of both time and production. This question of assigning the work is especially important in the mailing room, as one department may flood the room with work which, if done, would make it impossible to handle the work of other departments for several days. The head of the department must decide which is the most important work. Sometimes it is necessary to make out, in advance, a weekly schedule of circularizing to be done, and compel all departments to be governed by the schedule. As an alternative, some of the larger enterprises maintain a separate mailing room, in charge of the advertising department, exclusively for circularizing work.