_Executive_ expense is made up of the salaries of the general manager and comptroller, salaries of clerks and stenographers, and a proper portion of miscellaneous expense. In a manufacturing business, a part of the executive salaries is charged to manufacturing.
_Accounting_ expense includes the salaries of chief accountant and cashier, clerks and stenographers, blank books and supplies, and miscellaneous expense.
_Office_ expense is charged with the salary of the chief stenographer, and the expense of mailing and filing, including salaries of clerks.
_Credits_ and _collection_ expense include the salaries of the credit man and his clerks, the cost of mercantile agency service and reports, and the cost of collections, including postage.
_Purchasing_ expense, which, as stated, sometimes is a commercial expense, includes the salaries of purchasing agent, receiving clerk, stores clerk and their assistants, and the entire expense of the storeroom.
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.