The Old Van - The Manager (2)

John was picked up by one of the factory drivers from the airport and it was nearly 4.30 Pm in the evening.  He asked the driver to send him to the hotel; he felt a bit tired and wanted to have a rest for the rest of the day.

Early in the morning, as it was instructed, the factory driver picked him up at the hotel.  They went straight to the bricks factory instead of going to the office in town.  The office hours were 9.00 to 5.00 and the factory office was 8.00 to 6.00 and factory floor they operated three shifts system of 24 hours. They arrived at the factory office by 7.50Am.

A lady was at her desk in the factory office, doing her jobs with her full concentration and did not notice that John walked in to the office. John smile and said “Rita, Good morning” It startled Rita and she looked at John with annoyed expression on her face “Don’t you know, scared by ghosts, nothing will happened, scared by man, it cause my precious life especially by you” John smiled again and said “Please, be long life, do not ended life on my account, just be end of the day, be back home and happy and ever” Rita took no heed from John’s cheeky remarks, continuing her busy schedules for the day.

John pulled a chair and got himself be seated, he looked around; Rita was the only staff present in the earning morning. He was needed just only a few seconds, he had completed his job’s schedule for the day and he had done it by using his bio-computer, his brain.

He approached Rita, this time he slowly and lightly tapped on her table.  Rita did not stopped her work but responded to him “Yes John say it, is there anything” John “Please, prepare a report, the total production in units from last month starting from the3^rd up to today and the physical stock balance on the 3^rd of last month” The group had a practice when a responsible chief of administration staff arrived, all records be up to date on that date. Rita stopped her job and stared at John abruptly, she asked only one word “Why?” Thereafter she was in deep thoughts for a few seconds, then nodded her head and said “OK John, when do you need them?”  John “can you give them to me before lunch?” Rita “I believe I can manage it” Rita spoke again “John you do need the latest physical stock balance.  Do you? But I do need to get my house in order. My assistant just resigned end of last month and the new recruit will only be here next month.  The monthly reports, the salaries and wages computation are killing me” John “That’s ok I will arrange with Mike for the stock check”

John was about to step out from the factory office, flashes from his mind pulled him back to Rita’s table and he asked “Rita, it seems that you do have an idea of knowing what I am going to do” Rita “Yes I believe so, there were rumors about someone over here.  Your actions of getting that kind of reports, it has to have some connection” John “May I know the suspicious person” Rita “Let’s say, some relative of some powerful figure” John “Thanks Rita, Please without any concrete evidence, do not disclose anything to anybody” Rita “Understood, you get nothing from me and I have not doing anything for you except my in-house routine jobs” John walked out from office, at the door way he turned back and said “Rita. One more thing, NO LIFE ENDING please” She smiled.

The bricks factory, there were about a hundred production of lines, it meant; it was about a hundred brick kilns. The bricks were out from the kilns, there were conveyer belt, sending them to the packing division.  It was packing equipments doing the packing automatically. There were equipments to arrange the falling bricks from the conveyer belt. The equipments were placing them into holder and the holder arranging them in layers of 10 bricks wide, 5 bricks long and total of 20 layers which translate into 1000 bricks per cube.  The cube was wrapped up by the equipment with strong transparent plastic stripes.  There were than raised and push to another roller rails mechanically, resting at other end, waiting for forklift.  The forklift drivers, picking them up, sending them to the open-air store, they released and stacked them up in piles for dispatches.

John and Mike were on the forklift, having a tour of the open-air store.  They were stock taking, the job was completed just only an hour. It was quite an easy task; it needed only to do the addition of total cubes. John asked Mike to have a tour of the whole factory, its surroundings especially those empty corners that do not arouse suspicious from a daily operation of any employee.  It was to make sure that no hiding place and waiting for odd hours dispatching.

Head office, John was in his room, verifying the stock figures against sales figures.  He had no problem to retrieve sales figure, in units or sale value, in total or any other breakdowns as per his wishes.  It was just only a click of the mouse.

Opening stock plus production minus closing stock, it was a figure of net unit sale for the period in question. The net unit sale was good indicator for tracking a number of irregularities. John averaged the unit selling price of the period in question and multiplies the total net unit sale.  It was tally though it had some slight difference; it was due to the averaged unit selling price being taken.

John requested Rita to email him the weekly production reports with weekly book stock balance.  Again he multiplies by the averaged unit selling price against the weekly net unit sale. The results indicated, the 1^st week, sales and net unit sale was tally, 2^nd week, it was not tally and it was short by more than ten thousands in sale value, 3^rd week up to 5^th week, each week there was not tally by about the same amount and covered up all by the 6^th week.  John looked at the breakdowns and results, he smiled, voices in his brain “Good old accounting techniques and auditing theory of overlapping, they never fail and repeating by accounts profession layman”

Report sent to Sam by email and John was told all shortage was made good and Hank the Manager, Sam’s wife relative was no more with the group but he had opened his own business and be his own boss.


Next Topic: The Old Van – The Line of Credits

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The Old Van – The Managers (1)

Early in the morning, the airport taxi was waiting at John’s house door way.  In this part of the world, John’s Nation, his country, there were three main categories of taxi, the local taxi, they were allowed to cruise and doing business of picking up passengers in local town/city area, they were not allowed to pick up passengers and go over to next town/city.  The trans-states taxi, they were only allowed to pick up passengers from a designated state to another designated destination state. The airport taxi was the only taxi allowed to pick up airport’s passengers to any destination within the country but they were not allowed to pick up passengers other than airport’s passengers.

John was just getting himself be seated at his designated airplane seat. The airhostess started to serve breakfast, he got what he wanted and there came the drinks serving. The airhostess asked “Sir, coffee or Tea?” John answered “I want Cham with ice  please” The airhostess frowned her forehead and asked again “Sir, coffee or tea?” John realized and smiled “Sorry, please pour half cup of tea and half cup of coffee for me” The airhostess maintained her frowned forehead but at this point of time she was stunned and she was showing unable to serve posture. John noticed and he helped her by taking a paper cup “Please pour coffee into my cup half filled” The airhostess poured as directed. John asked her to pour tea into the same paper cup until it was a full cup.  The paper cup had both the coffee and tea mixed.

It was John’s favorite drinks, the mixed coffee with tea.  At times, he mixed 30% of coffee and 70% of tea, other times, 60% coffee and 40% of tea, or other combination.  It was entirely depending on his mood of urge and craves for the taste on the particular moment. The word “Cham” it was a local Chinese dialect, it meant “mixed” Most of the local coffee stores understood the recipe, especially the store that was frequent by John and they were even able to know the percentage of the mixed by signaling with fingers.

John was picked up by one of the factory drivers from the airport and by then he arrived at the factory meeting room, all managers and executives required to attend meeting, they were all present. John did not waste his time as well as the factory personnel’s’ time. He posed a question “Last month production, it was 10% higher than previous month and I have to say, well done but I have a problem of not able to understand, the 10% increased in turn of units which is not matched with increased cost of production.  It was increased by 30% which is very high and truly absurd.” The purchasing manager “The unit price of all raw materials is the same as previous month and in fact there was no price increased for the last few months. It won’t be any increasement for the next few months either” The purchasing manager had done his home work and he was clearly trying to impress his efficiencies andcapabilities.                        

Production manager also had done his homework, he said “The raw materials usage in turn of units, there were the same as previous month as well as the wastage; in fact the percentage of wastage is lower than any other previous month and actually we have hit the record low” Another manager was showing off. John “OK, Is there any explanation? There were an increased intake of raw materials and it was increased by 50% in terms of total cost!” Purchasing Manager “We are buying based on store requisition and we don’t have records of production details” He pushed off his responsibility totally. Store executive “We made the requisition based on production schedules and our existing stocks levels and they were needed to have such an increasement” Store executive protected himself and passed the accusing ball to production manager.

General Factory manager joined in and stopped production manager to start his version for another round of accusation or pushing unwanted ball round and round “There was an LC from HQ marketing and the production supposed to get started last month but there was a copy of telex from customer re-directed from marketing, asking us to delay shipment by one month” Meeting room was quiet for a moment, John knew very well, somehow the clerical errors was negligently made by the store and account department.  He was still needed to conduct the meeting; it was the way the board of directors wanted.  It was the way the board of directors wanted to indicate that they know very well of the operation of the business, every detail and every movement was unable to escape their eyes and ears. It was the way that the board of directors believes; it was the best way and the only way of internal auditing and profit maximization easily achieved.

John broke the silence “Production side is clearly not the issue, in fact it is well done for the increasement of 10% without incurring extra workmanship in terms of number of staffs and cost. Purchasing also not an issue and well done in their procurement with prices favorable to us. Store procedures were strictly followed and I don’t think there is an issue either. Now it is clearly an issue over the account side.” John faced the Accountant seating position and asked “Can you give me an explanation?” The Accountant was trying to protest “It is not them, it does not meant, it is ours” John raised his voice “Are you suggesting, there were pilferages in our factory! Or otherwise, do suggest, I am listening or rather we are listening! ” Once again the meeting room was quiet down for a second time.

John “Miss Accountant, I want a breakdown of last month total units and costs of each individual raw materials, purchased, issued and the book value of stock opening and closing.” He faced to store executive “Mr. Store executive, I want a list of physical stock check of last month of all raw materials. The report and the stock list emailed to me once completed but not later than next morning at 9.00 Am” He then faced to the General Manager “Mr. GM,  I have completed my probe and I hand over the meeting for you o chair”

General Factory Manager “I do believe, there is something, Purchasing Manager, please speak up” Purchasing Manager “Oh yes, quite often, I have complains from suppliers, they complained that our payments was not released to them in time and most of the time there were overdue” John asked the accountant “I thought we have released payments according to the terms and conditions” The Accountant “Yes it was and so far no problem except the uniform supplier, he always ask for payment before due dates” John looked at General Manager, he understood and asked the purchasing manager “I thought you was referring to those suppliers other than uniform suppliers”  Purchasing manager quipped “There is cash terms” General Manager flared and voice raised “I told you to get terms with at least 2 months credits” he asked the accountant “Is the purchase order issued with terms?” The Accountant “Yes, two month credits”

General Manager banged the meeting table “Purchasing Manager, I am warning you, I allowed you for your sister to supply uniforms to us with a condition that all terms and conditions must be better to our favor than other suppler” Purchasing Manager quipped again “for the record, my wife’s sister, not mine” general manager roared “I don’t care, she is your grandmother’s sister, you better take heed of my warning, it does not matter, whether you are my brother in law or my wife’s brother! Meeting off and over”


Next Topic: The Old Van - The Manager (2)

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