Accounting Information System Business Requirement Processes

Question: Discuss about the Accounting Information System for Business Requirement Processes. Answer: Introduction The report presented here explains and describes a business B. Bakery. The B. Bakery business owners are not at all happy with their accounting workflow, and they are looking to adopt good accounting software to take up their business to the next level. The report describes the component and competence of accounting information systems and its internal control. The business requirement processes and the related technology or infrastructure, as well as the challenges, have been explicitly discussed in this presented report. The investment done by the Bakery owners have a clear objective that they should consider some of softwares that will give them the desired outcome or results they are looking for. The author has selected some of the suitable accounting software and provides a justification of why they need that software and how it will help the Bakery to solve their accounting issue. Overview of the business processes The B. Bakery has been in the firm for the past 50 years, and they have been supplying bread, biscuits, and other bakery products along with some confectionary products such as sweet, bonbons, etc. to several different businesses which include pub chains and supermarkets. The B. Bakery business is a family business and has a total of around 70 employees who are working for this bakery business. They have been doing this business for the past 50 years and have been doing well as far as the sales revenues concern because last year they made around $13.5 million in business. They do supply their bakery products to different markets. But for quite some time they have been facing challenges with the business performance and recently from the last few years they have been experiencing some business growth from their newly produce product ranges. But somehow during this processes they have lost their major accounts which cost them heavy as they were completely unable to provide some of thei r bakery products at a competitive rate or cost. As a result, they have hired an accounting professional to look after the business records, but somehow they feel that they need to have a much better option as far as the accounting is a concern. So they have decided to go with a software based system to look after their accounts which will help them to increase their business sales and generate revenues. They are seeking to invest in the software so as to help them with their business to take higher levels. Business Requirements It is true that all the processes in an organization or business are linked up with each other, and if any one process is affected then, it will affect the others too (Meshalkin and Katerishchuk 2014). Some indispensable processes need to be addressed and performed by the B. Bakery are: 1. Marketing 2. Sales 3. Accounting 4. Production Unit 5. Supply chain management 6. HR Management The above-discussed processes are vital processes as far as the B. Bakery business is a concern. But there are some other critical processes but among all those the account is an essential part of any organization or business (Recker 2015). Moreover, it has been reviewed that B. Bakery has been facing some significant challenges on their accounts and for that; they have already hired an accounting professional who handles all their account work. Moreover, the B. Bakery owners are not satisfied with the overall outcome and due to this; they have lost most of the business sales in previous years. So they have decided that they need accounting software which can help to make the workflow process smooth and did understand market researching and business processes. The information that they will gather will help the B. Bakery to prepare some strategy which will help them to improve the business efficiency and effectiveness in the coming years (Von Mnchhausen et al. 2014). All these proces ses that have been discussed are critical in any Bakery business, and if proper accounting software is implemented in the firm, this will help them. So the B. Bakery has decided that they will invest money to implement accounting software, and this will take their business to the next level for sure. Required outcome from these processes The B. Bakery does need various outputs from their primary business so that their efficiency and effectiveness does increase in the marketplace which will help them to achieve the desired result. The most important outcome they need is the data or information. The data or information that is mostly related to operational and transactional part is required because without it nothing can be processed or no better decision can be taking on the business (Batocchio et al. 2016). The information or data such as raw material and inventory cost, vendors cost total sales figure, labor and production charges, etc. All other information or data are critical as useful data related to salaries of the employees. So the decision of making the AIS implementation in the business will help the Bakery business to manage various activities such as process managing, auditing, tax consulting, financial accounts, etc (Weske 2012). The information does play a critical role in the business because without it we cannot do anything with respect to the any business and organization. If we review the below mentioned points we can understand some business requirements that needs to be fulfilled. The below mentioned points are some operational requirements of this business that needs to be fulfilled, and they are listed below accordingly. They are: 1. Improvement must be made to the accounts. 2. The accounting software needs to integrate with all the other bakery business processes. 3. The business can be able to make some right and better decision on the bakery business. 4. Implementation or integration of AIS in the bakery business. Determining the System Requirements or Needs There are some possible software functionalities and features that the B. Bakery should consider to meet the information technology objectives. The firm does need Accounting information system a system that will help the B. Bakery to collect, store and process the financial and accounting information or data which has been used by decision makers. It tracks the accounting activity in connection with IT resources. There is some internal or subsystem within the Accounting information system software such as reporting cycle, HR revenue cycle, financial and production cycle and a basic ledger (Hall 2012). There are some basic features and functionality of the business process, and they are mentioned below. 1. The AIS function is that the effective and efficient storage and collection of data or information concerning the business financial activities which includes getting the transaction information from the source documents, recording the information on operations in a journals and then posting those information or data from those journals to ledgers and within the ledger the data will be sorted out from different accounts. 2. The Accounting information system is to supply the data or information which is helpful for making the right decisions which include the productive managerial reports and statements related to finance (Lipi et al. 2015). 3. The Accounting information system will provide all the required internal control to ensure that the reliability of the data or information that is generated or created by the software implemented and moreover to make sure the business objective and activities efficiency are maintained. Selecting the Software for B. Bakery The selection of software is always a challenging task for any business and organization. As per the given case, it has been observed that we need to select an accounting information system that the met the requirements of the present B. Bakery business. There are different kinds of accounting software requirements such as Small, Mid, and large industry. Low-Level Software These kinds of low-end accounting software are mostly suitable for small businesses and most businesses which have only maximum 2 to 5 employees. This low-end software's capable of doing and delivers the necessary activities of financial accounting and reviewing the financial reports. The softwares such as Xero, Freshbooks, QuickBooks, SAGE 50, etc. Mid Level Software These kinds of mid-level accounting software are mostly suitable for medium size businesses and mostly businesses which have only maximum 50 to 100 employees (Rahman et al. 2015). This range of software's are highly capable of performing real critical tasks, and they are highly scalable and do perform some critical task to generate the accurate reporting of the transactional data or information. The software's such as QuickBooks (Enterprise), Microsoft Dynamics, SAGE 100 ERP 2015, CYMA, etc. are some of the mid-range softwares. High Level Software These kinds of high level accounting software are mostly suitable for large size businesses and mostly businesses which have more than 150 employees. This software is highly capable of performing some severe and critical accounting activity (Taipaleenmki and Ikheimo 2013). They have extended functionality and have the capability to solve significant accounting problems. Softwares related to them are Oracle, SAP, ERP X3 are some related softwares. Vendor selection The B. Bakery is a mid-level business where there is a total of 70 employees are working altogether. So based on the previous question no. Four we can select the mid-level accounting software and can discuss two different accounting software packages and their functionalities (Fulmer and Gerard 2014). It will help the B. Bakery to have a proper idea of which software they need to select. So the right vendors for B. Bakery can be chosen by any of these software packages. They are QuickBooks (Enterprise), Microsoft Dynamics, SAGE 100 ERP 2015, CYMA, etc. Let us compare two different software packages to understand their features to select the right vendor for B. Bakery (Zimmerman 2015). Below there are two software packages that have been compare and contrasts, and a detailed explanation have been provided below about the software and why it is suitable for the mid-level business. SAGE 100 ERP One of the best features of SAGE 100 ERP is that it can provide you multiple options of Accounting Information System (AIS) software for small and medium business (Sage 2012). Few of them are mentioned below such as 1. SAGE 100 Advanced ERP 2. SAGE 100 Standard ERP This software is highly scalable in various businesses processes. This software's are capable of handling a large number of users in a single period for different kinds of business activities such as HR, CRM services, financial and accounting BI (Business Intelligence) and many such activities. It is highly flexible, stable and modern. It can be integrated into the client's server or on any platform which is online (Yes 2015). These involve the capability to provide the paperless office delivery choices; it provides the direct access to the paperless office viewer and enhances the performance of printing to print a huge variety of registers and reports. These needs Microsoft SQL and MS Windows based backend database. It is user-friendly to use and understand (Woodward 2014). The software can be highly modifies that the client or user can purchase and integrate features as needed. It saves history budgets while creating budgets for future periods. Creating the financial statement by c hoosing from various ranges of an inbuilt time. Microsoft Dynamics The software does optimize your sales process and improves the efficiency of B. Bakery sales team, as it gives an integrated view of the business and clients details. Using the extreme knowledge and tools which helps to enhance the business close rates and which also helps the B. Bakery team to sell the right product at the right time (Kachinske and Kachinske 2014). The software improved the efficiency of marketing events or programs and also controls the first performance indicators intuitive tools for the division and campaign management and in-depth marketing analysis. There are different variations they are SL, GP, and NAV. Among all those different variations the MS Dynamics GP is necessary software that provides the features for finance, controlling resources and the decisions (Duncan and Liley 2013). The MS Dynamic NAV is used for a general purpose for any medium sized business and does provide a complete control over the core business such as reporting, BI (Business Intellige nce), Supply Chain Management, Financial Management and HRM, etc. MS Dynamics SL is the third version of it, and this is also used for a mid-level business, and the best feature of this software is that it is suitable activity related to construction. It does provide the high quality support service to their customers (Shankar et al. 2014). The complete history of the cases related to the support enabling them to provide the support in a stable way for greater customer loyalty and enhancing the future profitability. Selecting most suitable vendor for B. Bakery Business B Bakery needs customized software's named as AIS for investment purpose. They want the software applications to work on an intercepted format platform that connects all organizational management. It must be strictly recommended to use the SAGE 100 ERP applications that are used for accounting software purpose for business applications (Automation 2014). The combined supported platform will be available through the software application. The clients, customers, and the vendors used to connect the same differentiated system using web based interface system. The transformation of raw business data into some meaningful advantage will add some extra knowledge to the existing business process (Payable et al. 2012). There must be an integrated software applications system for the firm management perspectives with the modular fundamentals of SAGE 100 ERP. These vital data and information may help the organizational management to create a strategy of competency. The billing payment modular st ructural software applications must be required for the corporate management. The mobile electronic commerce has become a trend. It is strictly advisable to maintain and manipulate the sales module in the SAGE 100 ERP applications which may assist the business organization to move towards future upcoming. It is strictly recommended to earn more company revenues if the management may utilize the accounting software calmly. Receiving the proper rate of interest will be further improved and hence, be faster in future upcoming. In these regards, it is strictly recommended that the expansion of customer base and segmentation that will be more scope for the business perspectives. The company management must maintain fulfillment to be sorely organized and efficient. It is strictly advisable to sustain and manipulate the sequence and scalability of the platform seamlessly. The compulsion billing payment modular fundamental software applications must be required for the organizational management. The organization management must maintain the sequence of the operational and transactional data and information in a perspective manner. In this regards, many multinational companies tend to face extreme pressure regarding customer base segmentation and handling the accounting software applications (Haddara 2014). The researcher wants to recommend that the maintain ace of the software dashboard must be manipulated ad equately and by the top and qualified experts; to avoid misrepresentation of data and information. As the analysis helps in understanding potential customers, understanding customers requirements thus customer relationship management will be easier and better. It must be strictly recommended to use the SAGE 100 ERP applications that are used for accounting software purpose for business applications. Conclusion The report discusses about B. Bakery accounting issue and solving it by implementing the accounting software in the firm. The report consists of the explanation of the bakery business and explains what the exact issues are. The issue is addressed, and various software levels are discussed in this document. The report does provide the functionalities of the selected software's and do compare what they have to offer to the mid-level size business. The authors provide a detailed recommendation for the bakery business of which software to be selected at last. The overall idea of this report is to suggest the accounting software that needs to be implemented in the bakery business to improve the business to the next level. References Automation, S.T., 2014. Sage Sales Tax. Sage, 866, pp.996-7243. Batocchio, A., Ghezzi, A. and Rangone, A., 2016. A method for evaluating Business Models Implementation Process. Business Process Management Journal, 22(4). Duncan, D. and Liley, C.J., 2013.Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Reporting. Packt Publishing Ltd. Fulmer, B.P. and Gerard, G.J., 2014. 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