He has full authority over the store rooms, in which he is assisted by the chief stores clerk. This department receives all goods, checks receipts with orders or invoices, stores the goods, delivers them on properly executed requisitions, and maintains perpetual inventory records as prescribed.
=17.= A department, or rather a sub-department, not shown on the chart but found in some establishments, is the _employment department_. This department is very properly in immediate charge of the superintendent, and, in the average manufacturing plant, he will hire all men. In a plant employing a great number of men, it is impossible for the superintendent to personally take charge of this work, and an employment agent is placed in charge.
The employment agent keeps records of all employes and applicants and hires all men needed by the different foremen.
=18.= The organization that we have described is a representative illustration of the application of the principles to a large enterprise, necessitating a considerable number of subdivisions. But even here the charts show only what may be termed the principal divisions; the charts might be extended in greater detail. The explanation might include the exact duties of every employe in each department, but, as our purpose is to present general principles in sufficient detail to serve as a guide, explanations of these minute details have been omitted.
There are, however, modifications to be found in certain cases which may be made clear by further suggestions. We have referred to the comptroller, and while in many concerns no such office is recognized, at least by that title, some man in every business of any magnitude fills an analogous position.
Most frequently it is the auditor, or if the office of auditor has not been created, it may be the treasurer. Again, the duties or a greater part of them, may fall on the office manager or the chief accountant. Even in a small partnership where one of the partners is the bookkeeper, the duties exist, and are performed by that partner who keeps the accounts. It must be remembered that the comptroller's office is primarily statistical. It matters not whether the statistical operations involve the keeping of a simple set of books or require large commercial and factory accounting forces with a third division to compile statistics from their records, every business demands certain statistical work. Neither is it important whether the man in charge of this work be called comptroller, auditor, accountant or office manager, but we have used the title of comptroller as more exactly descriptive of the functions of the office when carried to its legitimate conclusion in a large business.