Document flow in the management system of chain trade companies

The Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation Abstracts. This article considers document flow in the management system of chain trade companies. Taking into account the specific character of their activities, chain trade companies constantly face the demand for unification of document processing. Volume of document flow in chain companies is significant and rather costly. At the same time it constantly requires optimization in accordance with the transformation of a company's business processes posed by the changing market. The paper examines arrangements for organizing document flow of chain retailers, defines general components of accounting policies, classifies major documents used in the company's operating activities. The author also identifies stages of document flow in chain retailing companies starting from the interface of interaction with suppliers up to the interface of interaction with consumers. The results of the study show that while considering document flow as an imparting business process, it is important to take into account the documentation of core and control processes of an enterprise, due to the fact that in the majority of cases documents serve as an input and output of various business processes. In its turn, performance of the entire chain trade company depends on the proper document processing.