The nature of office work

THE NATURE OF OFFICE WORK

Understanding the nature of office work is part of the ACCA Paper F1 syllabus.

In all offices, whether they are large or small, or whether they are in government, business or commerce, there is discernible a common pattern or cycle of activity. Information, usually in the form of electronic media, writing, or printing, is received. The piece of paper or form may have come through the post, from another office in the same organisation, or it may have originated in the office itself as the result of a telephone call or electronic processing. This information or ‘data’ is now invariably the subject of clerical activity. Broadly, this work consists of examining documents and deciding what to do with them, checking the data on the documents for completeness or credibility, sorting the documents, copying the data from one document to another, doing arithmetic on the data, summarising and analysing the data, and checking the results for accuracy. This electronic flow or ‘paperwork’, which may be performed with or without the assistance of machines, constitutes the processing of data.

SERVICES PROVIDED BY AN OFFICEAn office gives the following service:

Communication, both inside and outside the organisation. This will include writing, word processing, emailing, oral communication, meetings and mailing services. Some office records are made obligatory by law, e.g. certain forms of accounts. Others are maintained for their contributionto business efficiency.

The processing of information, including indexing, coding, sorting, collating and arithmetical processes.

The storage of information, including recording, copying and duplicating. One may also include here the transporting of data and the posting of records to another place. This can involve electronic data flow or manual work.

Management information, including aids to decision making.

The safeguarding of assets. Under this will come the protection of cash, inspecting, checking,comparing, auditing and arranging insurance cover.