The internal auditors for a large corporation interviewed the assistant manager of purchasing to find out how special orders are processed by the purchasing department. The auditors transcribed the assistant manager's statement as follows:

We get special orders every once in a while from different departments. Usually it's either production or the main office people who put in the special orders. But every once in a while we get special orders from other departments, too. Anybody putting in a special order usually calls us, and we tell them to come down and pick up a special-order form that they have to fill out. Because the main office has all the big shots, we just take them a handful of blank special-order forms every once in a while, because they don't want to come down and pick them up. The production department makes special orders often enough that we take them a stack of blank forms, too. The production secretary just calls when they get low and I send someone up with some more.

Well, anyway, after they fill it out, they give the form to one of our purchasing agents who checks and makes sure that all the right information is there. He checks stuff like what item is heing ordered, who's authorizing the order, when it's needed, and the right code number. Stuff like that.

After the purchasing agent is satisfied that the form is okay, he'll call one of our suppliers, you know, the one that's most likely to have it, to see if they can get us the item when it's needed and to find out how much it costs.
Our policy states that we have to get at least two bids on all orders that are more than \(\$ 1,000\). The purchasing agent takes care of that. Our purchasing agents have gotten to know company suppliers pretty well and usually can pick the best one right off. The only reason they call some of the others is because of the policy. There have been a couple of times, though, when some of our agents were fooled and they did get better prices from their second or third call.
Well, anyway, after the purchasing agent gets the special-order form and calls the suppliers, he chooses the best one and makes out a purchase order. I sign it, or Mr. Tatum, the purchasing director, does. We keep a copy of the purchase order here. We send the supplier a copy. And we send the accounting department a copy. That's right, there are three copies: one for us, one for the supplier, and one for accounting. Then everybody just waits till the goods get here.
The shipping and receiving department gets the order, makes out a receiving report, and sends a copy to the accounting department. They send a copy to us, and I think they keep a copy, but I'm not sure. I think they ought to if they don't. But I'm pretty sure they do.
We call the department that put in the order and tell them that their stuff has arrived, and they go pick it up. Or somebody delivers it to them. Whichever way, they make the arrangements to get it from shipping and receiving. We check and make sure that the receiving report matches up with our purchase order and that what we ordered is what arrived. I understand that shipping and receiving takes out a packing slip from the items sent from the supplier and sends the packing slip with a copy of the receiving report to the accounting department. Accounting matches up the copy of the purchase order, the packing slip, and the receiving report, staples 'em together and waits for the invoice from the supplier. If the invoice checks out with everything else, then someone in the accounting department sends a check to pay for the special order. As far as I know, that's about it.
Required:

a. Write a well-organized narrative outlining the special-order process for the above company.

b. Prepare a horizontal flowchart with the following column headings: Ordering Department; Purchasing Department; Supplier; Shipping and Receiving; Accounting Department. Label key control points as given by the assistant purchasing manager.

c. Prepare a vertical flowchart of the special-order process. Label key control points as given by the assistant purchasing manager.