Office Functions And Duties Of Office Employees

From dealer to dealer, the basic functions performed by accounting personnel are much the same, regardless of dealership size.  However, the number of office employees has a considerable effect on the distribution of assigned duties within the department.

The office should be of adequately staffed in order to handle the workload and should be organized to function with optimum efficiency. This can be accomplished by:

1.      Determining the specific office functions to be performed, categorizing them, and assigning them to well trained and qualified employees.

2.      Determining whether each employee can perform the assigned duties within the normal working hours.

The type of accounting system (with respect to data application – computerized, non-computerized or partially computerized) also has an effect on the nature and assignment of office duties.

In the following pages, the office functions have been broken down into sub-functions or duties.  Suggestions as to the assignment of such duties have been included.

To provide a guide as to how these duties may be delegated in dealerships with office staffs of various sizes:

1.      The right-hand side of each page has been divided into seven columns. Numeric characters indicating the number of office employees, ranging from one to six or more employees, head the first six columns. The seventh column is provided for the convenience of the business manager so that the name of the employee to whom specific duties are assigned may be noted.

2.      Code letters have been assigned to various job titles as follows:

A.     Office Manager

B.     Bookkeeper

C.    Cashier

D.    Car Biller

E.     Switchboard Operator

F.     Clerk(s)

G.    Dealer

H.     General Manager

I.         An Operating Department Manager

J.      Warranty Claim Administrator

Thus, an office manager with a four-employee office would simply need to identify the job title code letter in column “4” to determine the recommended assignment of a specific duty.

It should be kept in mind that the job titles used in assigning office work cannot, in all instances, reflect the full scope of an employee’s duties.  For example, the title of office manager in a one-person office could mean that the employee is a combination bookkeeper, cashier, car biller and clerk.  The same title in a large dealership could designate an accounting or business manger with extensive supervisory responsibilities.  Another example is the title of cashier in a two-person office, where the employee could be a combination cashier, assistant bookkeeper and clerk.

Total or partial computerized systems will eliminate some of the office duties listed, such as the footing and balancing of journals, posting of general ledger, posting to subsidiary records, preparation of supporting schedules and preparation of customer statements.

One of the criteria used in preparing the recommended assignment of office duties was to consider a maximum of internal control safeguards for each size of office.  However, in actual practice it will often be necessary to deviate from the recommended job assignments to some extent because of conditions peculiar to the dealership.  Therefore, the job assignments should be reexamined before they are finally put into effect to ensure that good internal control has been preserved; this can be done by testing the proposed job assignments against relevant criteria outlined in the section of this handbook entitled Internal Controls.

After the following guides have been completed, the results should be used to formulate a general job description applicable to each job classification and should be included in the Policies and Procedures Manual(s).  Using the general job description as a guide, a unique job description should be developed for each individual employee with a copy retained in the employee’s file.