Significance Of Accounting Software For Medium-Sized Organizations Like B Bakery.

The main purpose of this report is to understand the significance of accounting software for medium sized organizations like B Bakery. The business process and requirements associated with the organizations with reference to IT system is mainly discussed in this report. ERP and AIS are important accounting software requires for business operations of organizations. The most suitable accounting software required for this organization in order to enhance their overall business operations is also discussed in this report. Further, two important accounting software are also compared as per business of organization and most preferable software required for bakery business with clear reasons are also discussed at the end of this report.       

A person who is professionally involve in the business of making breads and pastries to deliver their service at the public favorite place like restaurants, hotels, and grocery stores is known as bakers. A baker’s aim is to deliver the best quality pastries to the customer and baker is very much focused and concentrated about the ingredients, which will mix by the baker while making pastries. Bakers could be existed in two forms. Firstly are those who are commercially involved in the making of pastries and second form are of retail bakers who are involved in grocery stores and bake shops. The basic difference between these two forms of bakers is that baking in huge quantities and firmly follows the pre-defined recipes (Hecker, et. al., 2010). 

It is important for the baker to inspect all the ingredients, which are available to the baker for the whole day functioning of baking. The main task of the baker is to ensure that all the ingredients are must be fresh that will used to make breads, cupcakes and pastry. It is duty of the baker to cut, rolling and moulding the dough in the preferred shape (Harcourt, 2011).

B Bakery is the company of bakery, which is involved in the business of making various products of bakery. Various baked items are making by the company then they deliver it to various supermarkets for selling. The main aim of the organization is to make the best quality product and then supply it to various groceries or departmental store for their customers (Harcourt, 2011).

There are various units’ runs in the organization like marketing and sales department, supply chain management, Human Resource department and accounts comprises the bakery business. Supply chain management works to ensure the purchasing of quality raw materials from the different business units, which will use in the baking. Afterwards, the production of bakery starts in the production department where all the bakery items are make by the experts. Then the logistics and inventory department to the different targeted locations does supply of the baked items (Peri?, et. al., 2013). The work of the accounts department is to manage the money of the company and look into the matter of the various payments done by the organization to suppliers, received payment from the stores as well customers. Making the payroll of the employees is does by the accounts department. Receiving the orders and supply them to the targeted locations is does by the sales department. The work of HR department is to manage the labour in the organization, like recruitment and selection of correct people and decide their payrolls according to their capability. All the department in the organization is depend on other department if any of the department stops work then it will hamper the whole organization. To understand it more clearly just take example of supply chain management if supplies of raw materials stops or decrease than it will affect the production, sales, revenue, everything. Therefore, it is very much important to take care every unit for successfully functioning. It is very much essential that all the departments are linked together and works with good efficiency (Peri?, et. al., 2013).

Business Process of a Bakery

Various functions are performed in the business of bakery. The activities that are stated in the above sections are vital. The various actions executed like productions, acquirement, supply chain management and supervision the human resource along with to maintain the accounts of the business. To be a competitive in the market it is essential for the organization to record all the activities related to monetary terms and analysis the profit and expenditures of the company. From last few years, B bakery has grown up their business but they have faced problems like prices of the some items, so it is required to revise all prices of the items to be in market (Grunert, et. al., 2012).

To have the price advantage company need to purchase the raw materials on cheaper price but ensure that no comprise on quality for that company needs to identify the correct supplier who can fulfill their demand. It is the next necessity of the firm to pack the various items and then deliver it to various supermarkets, retailers and warehouse. It is very important for the company to understand the strategy of their competitors and their process of baking by that B bakery can work on their lacking areas. The work of accounting department is very crucial because they have to maintain the record of all the monetary activities related to packaging, raw material, and transportation and warehousing and to analysis the income from sales by that it will help the company in further decision making. By recording all the financial uses, the department also helps in calculating the money to be paid to staff and taxation amount that will help the organization to understand whether they need to invest more or not (Grunert, et. al., 2012).

Required outcomes from these processes to achieve business objectives

Companies also must change their working style and other things according to the time. B bakery needs to use technology for the production of bakery items that will not only help in accounting but also effectively provide the solutions of the problems, which is faced by the company. The department needs to be working collectively in the organization by that Human Resource team can speed up their process of recruitment and focus on the performance of the existing employees. It will help in improving the performance of employees that will make them efficient workers, which will help the organization to compete with their competitors. Accounts department is linked with all the other departments running in the organization because this department need to record the activities performed by the other departments and records the money used by the these departments and calculate the total cost incurred by these departments in the organization (Costa, et. al., 2013).

Business Requirements

The main goal of the organization is to maximize their profits with minimum resources with effectiveness and efficiency but it is not as simple in the today’s competitive market. Therefore, company needs to analyse their all resources and find out the best possible solution to increase the maximum output. Margins in the products is the main part to increase the profits for that company has to increase their sale for that B bakery has advertise more about their product (Qualman, 2010). The main problem in bakery business is the freshness of the product remains for the shorter period so company focus on the correct sellers, which sell their items quickly. 

There are various accounting software are available in the market by that company can easily record their transaction and analyze their profit and loss. Various softwares are SAP, Enterprise resource planning and MYOB (Bigliardi, et. al., 2010).  

The implementation of software like AIS or ERP plays significant role in enhancing overall business objectives of the organizations in terms of investment as well. ERP software is mainly used to accommodate different business processes or goals for the organizations using central database whereas; AIS software is used to access business information from different business operations and processed them effectively in order to achieve business objectives (Laudon and Laudon, 2016). This software is efficient enough for data processing by capturing information from various business transactions using documentation and other sources. The data is easily transferred from journals to ledgers which records overall business transactions for the organizations. The analysis of data done by AIS also enhances decision making capability of the management. This also emphasises on internal control over the information which enhances reliability and security as provided by AIS to the organizations.    

There are certain features which should be possessed by different accounting software,

This is one of the significant features for software as stores confidential data including account numbers, identification number of employees, financial balances and many more. The data needs to be protected in order to avoid any financial or technical crisis in the business operations of the organizations (Ismail and King, 2014). Owners need to consider those software or applications from vendors which provides security features in terms of data privacy and confidentiality.

The accounting software needs to track all financial transactions and documents including withdrawals as well as deposits. The reporting features will enable the management to control their finances and also able to manage large transactions at any remote location.          

Indispensable Processes to be Performed

The accounting software needs to effectively handle billings and also track information of customers with their payments. This feature also includes other properties like invoice processing, payment processing as well as automatic invoicing. This feature will enable the organization to manage their overall business processes or operations that certainly help them to achieve their overall business objectives.   

It is very tedious task to manage different financial transactions and handle accounts for organizations on manual basis. The automation feature will enable organizations to effectively monitor employee expenses, payrolls times and budgets in order to enhance their business operations.  

This is the feature which enables organizations to effectively update their information system based on changes or variations within business operations including changes in financial practices or tax laws. This will effectively update information on automatic basis and enables organizations to achieve their investment objectives in information technology.   

This is the feature which enables the organizations to effectively integrate their administrative or operational systems with the accounting software using technologies like web services. This also helps the organizations to update their business operations and effectively deliver their information throughout the entire globe using efficient supply chain with utmost security.   

The accounting software needs to be connected with banking software in order to process direct payments for the organizations and also allows them to efficiently import data into accounting systems from the banks (Simkin et al, 2013). This will also enable the organizations to enhance their business transactions and able to achieve their overall business objectives.

This feature enables the organization to integrate business operations of one department to another within the organizations. This helps to enhance overall business efficiency and also all information is collected within single database that enhances effectiveness of business operations of the organizations in order to achieve investment objectives in IT.

In addition, software needs to encompass with other features like,

• Accountability, management or stock for frequently used materials including flour, eggs or yeast with other finished products.
• Ability to trace or track possible allergens or ingredients in order to accomplish requirements for business objectives in case of product recalls (Patel, 2015).
• Able to forecast scale manufacture, yields and accurate cost for the products.
• The software should also be encompassed with features like inventory management, order management, production scheduling, quality control and product management.
• Integration with different technologies in order to enhance process interoperability, teamwork and visibility.

It has been analysed form case study that B Bakery is medium sized organization with medium scaled business operations and according to this feature of organization medium sized software for accounting purposes will be suitable for B Bakery. The organization has more than fifty employees but lower than 250 whereas revenues for business operations is above $5.6 million but lower than the $22.6 million which makes B Bakery as medium sized organization operating in the field of bakery products (Collier, 2015). The accounting software comes under medium category are more efficient for business processes and useful to maintain different accounting standards for the organizations. This also helps the organization to enhance reliability or accuracy for their financial statements that enables them to present their true financial position at marketplace among different stakeholders in order to improve their overall investment.

Required outcomes from these processes to achieve business objectives

Business processes are performed in quicker manner using medium sized accounting software as compared to procedures of manual handling. This also enables automation feature within information system that helps the organizations to enhance their efficiency for the financial transactions and at the same time, also reduces overall costs for financial transactions. Automation feature within medium sized software also enables top management to improve their decision making capability (Yigitbasioglu, 2016). The complications within business operations are effectively handled using this software that certainly helps to enhance overall performance of business. Inventory management for medium sized organizations is also more feasible using this accounting software as compared to low-ended software that also provides competive advantage benefits to the organization. This also enables the organization to enhance relations with customers and helps them to improve customer base with their loyalty. The operational capability of managers is also improved using this type of software as provides efficient financial reports that helps the organization to achieve their overall business objectives in terms of both performance and revenues.   

From the business operations of B bakery, it is analysed that Microsoft Dynamics and NetSuite are two important software packages of accounting for medium sized organizations like B Bakery. Microsoft Dynamics focuses to enhance the business operations of medium sized organizations by considering target market in the same business operations. The financial operations for organizations are easily maintained or used using this software. This also encompassed with features like accounting, financial reporting and revenue management that helps the organization to effectively integrate their financial data with possible outcomes for the business operations (Demski, 2013). NetSuite software is mainly used to enhance relations with customers and effectively manage business operations for the organizations. This is also designed for medium sized organizations in order to handle their ERP and accounting systems. In addition, this software automates overall accounting process for business operations and also provides business intelligence services on real time basis.  

Both the NetSuite and Microsoft Dynamics software are effectively managing account receivables, general ledgers, account payables, expense reports or time for the business organizations. NetSuite is mainly based on open source features or system that effectively integrates with e-commerce as well as CRM in order to enhance functional value for business operations of the organizations. ERP, e-commerce, CRM or Automation based on professional service are some vital products for NetSuite. This software also helps in inventory management, HR management and operations based on back office for the organizations (Adebayo et al, 2013). However, Microsoft Dynamics helps to reduce IT and operational expenses of the organizations. Inventory management is also effectively procured by this software and enhances supply chain for the organizations. Both software as discussed are efficient enough for the top management and accountants in order to enhance their decision making capability and helps to improve overall performance of the organizations so that remain competitive within the marketplace.  

System Requirements

(Source: M Ancini et al, 2013)

Further, from above discussion, it is analysed that NetSuite software is available in numerous languages which can be effectively implemented as per requirements for business operations. Microsoft Dynamics transfers its applications on real time basis in various currencies and encompasses dashboard that assists to track records for business operations in more efficient manner. This software provides adequate accounting solution to organizations and also manages CRM and marketing functions. This software also integrates with ERP applications on cloud basis that enables the organizations to efficiently handle their operations and financial accounts (Sa?er and Olui?, 2013). However, Microsoft Dynamics also provides professional solutions to organizations in terms of features like business intelligence, HRM and supply chain. This software also assists in manufacturing process which enables the organizations to manage sales forecasting, quality assurance and requirement planning for the materials. Financial feature for this software also provides different solutions like analytical accounting, e-banking, asset management and bank reconciliation which help the organizations to enhance their market share.

With contrast to features of NetSuite, this helps to enhance sales forecasting which proves beneficial for growth of organizations. This software is available in numerous languages across the globe which also encompassed with properties like e-commerce as well as commission management (Patel, 2015). The accounting solutions are based on web technology and its open system enhances visibility for business operations on real time basis and effectively control business operations of the organizations.  

The accounting system based on information technology modules is the basic requirements for B Bakery in order to enhance their overall business operations. On comparing both Microsoft Dynamics and NetSuite accounting software, it is analysed that NetSuite software will be the most suitable for business operations of B Bakery (Laudon and Laudon, 2016). The reason behind to select NetSuite for the organization is that it enables the organization to perform their business operations on various platforms including web based, windows and android. This software is based on cloud technology through which data can be accessed from any remote locations as per business requirements of the organization.      

NetSuite software is effective enough to organize different business processes and enables employees to use more updated data or information that certainly helps the organization to enhance their overall productivity level. The availability of customised platform on this software also enhances its visibility on real time that assists the organization to take efficient decisions for growth of their bakery business with different products. It is easy to implement at affordable prices and collaborates on B2C and B2B basis that certainly improves compatibility for business operations (Galliers and Leidner, 2014). This also proves significant for business expansion as available in different languages that helps to enhance flexibility for bakery business across different regions. NetSuite’s financial system and web-based accounting also supports the organization to provide business intelligence on real time for each department within the organization. Automation within business process is also observed due to this software that reduces complexity and cost for overall business operations of B Bakery.

Software Features

NetSuite also integrates AIS with e-commerce and CRM that helps to enhance productivity level for business operations of B Bakery. This software is expandable and scalable in nature and can easily integrate with system as per business requirements in effective manner. This also enhances data security for B Bakery which makes it more reliable as compared to other accounting software. Back office operations for medium sized organizations like B Bakery are also simplified using this software that certainly helps to improve overall business performance. Inventory management feature of this software also helps to control overall costs for the organization through order fulfilment and inventory control as per business requirement for the organizations (Esmeray, 2016). E-mail marketing and sales forecasting done through this software also enables the organization to perform their business operations in more efficient and smooth manner that enhances overall profits for the organizations. This also enhances approach based on customers by providing order status or account receivables on real time to organizations like B Bakery. The relation with suppliers or vendors is also improved using this software as provides visibility on real time basis. So, On overall basis, it is analysed that NetSuite is the most suitable accounting software for business operations of B Bakery.  

Conclusion:

From the report, it is concluded that supply chain, distribution, manufacturing, marketing, inventory management and sales are different business process performed by B bakery. Medium category is most suitable accounting software for this organization and on that basis, NetSuite is selected for B Bakery’s accounting operations. This accounting software will enhance financial operations and information system of organization. This also manages CRM, inventory or sales operations in order to enhance overall business operations by reducing overall costs.  

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