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The comma lies at the place in the sentence where you would normally take a breath, or where there is a natural pause. It is the most frequently used punctuation mark and has many functions. It is generally used:

1 To record a list of things:

At the party we had cake, jelly, ice-cream, biscuits and fizzy drinks.

2 To mark out direct speech:

‘So tell me,’ he said, ‘do you come here often?’

3 To mark off a sentence or clause where a pause is needed in reading:

Among the people who came to my party were the actor, John Brown, and his wife, Susie Smith, who wrote the film we had been to see earlier, and her friend Jim.

4 To mark off words like however, therefore and of course.

Generally speaking, and particularly in business prose, you do not need a comma before ‘and’ or ‘but’, although it is better to insert one if it will make the sentence more readily comprehensible.