Functional Areas of a BusinessTopic: Roles and activities of each functional areaFinance - the department is responsible for looking after the budgets of the various outlets, to ensure that they don't spend too much. They keep financial records of all their payments they have made to their suppliers, as well as payments that customers have made to them from their customers. This feature is also used to track late payment of invoices so that the company does not end up in debt. This area also provides their managers with accounts, for example profit and loss accounts and balance accounts. This helps the company to evaluate its performance during the year and also to make comparisons with the performance of previous years to enable the company to operate more efficiently and set goals for the future. Some financial groups deal with staff salaries and wages, these are sent to each employee's bank accounts. Administration – This function is responsible for daily paperwork. This includes processing letters from their customers and suppliers. This service also handles all telephone and email requests from external sources such as customers, for example. Research and development - company employees are responsible for this function. Employees always participate in external training courses to identify effective work practices. The research and development function is also responsible for researching and developing different services. Functional areas work together by holding regular meetings at the head office shop floor to give feedback to...... middle of paper...... achieve their goals by making sure everyone is working efficiently and ensuring all paperwork is completed. so that the company does not find itself in difficulty. Cooperative travel uses fax as a quick way to send data to other members of the company. For example, the finance department may need to outsource work to another department and, instead of going all that way and wasting time, they can fax the work. This could help the company achieve its goals because it works quickly and saves time so it can spend that time on something else. Cooperatives use the Internet as a way to send messages to their customers. For example, they might use an Internet website to advertise your business. . This could help the company achieve its goals because it can then become a more well-known company..