ABSTRACT
The most obvious business control is accounting. Management has to know whether its business is making a profit or a loss. It has to know what it is spending and what it is getting back. In order to make a profit a business has to satisfy a market— it has to satisfy the requirement of a body of consumers at the price they are willing to pay. Cost control, however, is only one of many controls required by business. It is part of a wider system of control usually called ‘financial control’. In order to sell a product successfully a salesman himself must have the maximum information about the market as well as knowing the psychological techniques of salesmanship. The manager’s main function is decision-making; and to make decisions in modern business one must have a maximum of information. Capital is generally thought of as money or purchasing power, but of course if it remains merely money it is useless.
