Recently, Zhongshan Century, a listed automobile dealer group, issued an announcement that a former employee was suspected of embezzling the funds of the Company's subsidiaries, saying that a sales consultant of its subsidiary Zhongshan Century Jabber Automobile Co., Ltd. was suspected of embezzling Zhongshan Century Jabber's vehicles, and in this regard, Zhongshan Century United "made a provision of about RMB7.4 million in the above-mentioned year (2021)".
According to the "Profit Warning" estimates, the net profit of Zhongshan Century United in 2021 is only 2 million yuan, so it seems that the above provision amount has reached nearly four times the net profit, making its already meager profit due to the epidemic even worse, with a year-on-year decline of 90%.
A whole year of hard work, one night back to the pre-liberation period!
Automobile dealers have become a high-incidence area for job embezzlement
According to Zhongshan Century United, the sales consultant is most likely to be convicted of "job embezzlement". According to Article 271 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China, "a staff member of a company, enterprise or other unit who, by taking advantage of his position, illegally appropriates the property of his or her own unit" will be judged as "the crime of occupation of office". In recent years, it has become very common for car 4S shop sales consultants to illegally encroach on the property of car buyers by collecting car payments and purchase taxes.
From December 2016 to March 2017, Sun Mou (female, born in 1984), a sales consultant at Dalian Dongfeng Nissan 4S store under a domestic automobile dealer group, defrauded 11 people of 147,700 yuan under the pretext of paying vehicle purchase tax on behalf of customers. In the end, the sales consultant Sun Mou was convicted of embezzlement and fraud, and decided to execute a fixed-term imprisonment of four years and six months and a fine of 10,000 yuan. At the same time, Liu Mou, director of the sales department of the 4S store, was also convicted of embezzlement of his position (sentence of five years and six months) for similar circumstances.
4S store sales consultant Huang mou signed a car purchase contract with the customer
In 2020, a domestic automobile dealer group subordinate to Guangxi Fangchenggang Dongfeng Nissan 4S store, sales consultant Huang Mou (female, born in 1995), through the collection of car payment, defrauded 10 people of car booking and car purchase money (after the court trial determined that Huang's refund amount was 1204641.59 yuan), all used to return the usurious loan owed due to gambling. In the court's judgment on the 4S store and the deceived customer, it was found that "the customer bears 20% of the responsibility, and the 4S store bears 80% of the responsibility", and both parties can recover from the sales consultant Huang.
Taizhou Huangyan 4S shop job encroachment case operation ideas
Even more outrageous is the following "nest case". Since April 2015, Bao Mou, the showroom manager of a 4S store in Huangyan, Taizhou, together with 8 sales consultants, has occupied part of the company's car sales money by "first collecting part of the car sales price from customers, and then by underfilling the total car price amount on the internal confirmation form as the basis for financial collection", as of late October 2018, Bao and others have embezzled more than 2.2 million yuan of car sales.
Automobile dealers should strengthen internal control management
Most auto dealers do not have a high level of management, and internal control management is useless (or even no system has been formed); from the above cases, its problems appear in "price management", "financial collection" and other links. In fact, with simple process adjustments and optimizations, the probability of these risks can be minimized.
For example, the 4S store informs the 4S store that the public account is the only collection account through displays, financial personnel statements, etc., and it is strictly forbidden to collect any form of personal account collection; at the time of final collection, the finance once again confirms with the customer in writing whether the amount of payment and the amount of invoice are consistent.
In addition, the business links involving physical and financial management of 4S stores, such as second-network sales, parts management, and accident car management, should also be the focus of the internal control management of automotive 4S stores.
Here is another example of after-sales maintenance, due to the long maintenance cycle of the accident car, the long delivery cycle (involving the insurance company's advance payment agreement, payment collection and other factors), there will be a large number of accessories out of the warehouse and can not be settled in time, and once the vehicle is repaired, the quality inspection personnel are good, the customer is also difficult to find whether the relevant accessories are replaced, which also leaves an "opportunity" for those with ulterior motives to sell accessories privately.
The image is from Baidu and is only used for illustrations
In reality, it is not uncommon for accessories personnel and workshop personnel to go up and down their hands and fill their own pockets. This involves risk internal control management in many aspects such as 4S shop parts management, accident car management (also in car repair management) and so on.
For the single store of the automobile dealer, it is necessary to make full use of the existing financial personnel, strengthen the role of financial supervision, and do a good job in internal control management; for the automobile dealer group, it is possible to consider the transfer of financial and operational personnel, the establishment of an independent internal control agency, the strengthening of the operation supervision of the 4S store, and the implementation of group internal control independent management.
Imagine that if the potential loss caused by a store is 7 million, for the car dealer group with hundreds of 4S stores, the overall potential loss it faces will be as high as hundreds of millions of yuan, or even one billion yuan, which is the loss pressure that any car dealer group can bear, and at the same time bring unbearable cash flow pressure!
Judging from the current situation of the development of the automobile dealer industry, even if it is the leading automobile dealer group in China, there is still a lot of room for improvement at the level of internal control management. In the face of the uncertain future of the industry, the auto dealer group should consider how to "throttle" while expanding its business "open source". It is expected that more auto dealer groups will strengthen internal control and say "NO" to job encroachment!