Discussing Microsoft Excel For Digital Forensic Accounting In An Essay.

Difficulties in the Organizational Structure

Discuss About The Microsoft Excel Digital Forensic Accounting.

Wesfarmers is one the largest conglomerate in Australia and has been listed on the stock exchange. The company has ventured into a variety of operations and has expanded its business to far of places. The company has many retail outlets and is also termed as the biggest company in the world in terms of revenue so this would easily resonate the fact that the company would require a good accounting software package that would help it managing its data and its financial statements. Management of the data and financial statements is important for the overall wellbeing of the company. The company is one of the top most institutions and thus it uses one of the biggest and largely used software for its operations known as QuickBooks (Yadao, 2018). QuickBooks helps the company all over the data in management of complex data and generates effective result. It can be customized as per the needs of the company and there are millions of features available that the company can use through QuickBooks. A lot depends upon the overall organizational structure of the company that manages the overall flow of data within the organization. The current organizational structure of the company involves varied amount of business in different sectors that are spread all over the nations. The company has conglomerated into a structure as per which the businesses must be managed from cross border association and thus sometimes it becomes difficult to maintain the synchronization of the same.

2)Given the enormity of the operations of the company, synchronization of activities is one of the biggest problems that company can face. The operations are spread in many parts of the world, so maintaining the use of same software all throughout sometimes become difficult. The company also must make changes in the present system time and again to ensure that it does not become redundant and is as per the demands of the operations of the company (Maynard, 2017). The overall technological changes also affect the overall flow of operation in the company, so that needs to checked time and again. When you are one of the top revenue generating company, there are many security issues that are associated with the data of the company and maintaining the integrity of data is the most important thing that company needs to do. Good secure and highly efficient system is what the company and its operations demand and that can be fulfilled by through market research and being cleared about the requirements of the company.

Most Likely Acquisition Method

With growth and development in the recent technology there are various acquisition methods that the companies can adopt worldwide. The type of acquisition depends upon the nature of the company, the budget and their basic overall requirements of the company. The most likely acquisition methods are commercial accounting software in which these are owned by the software companies and can be customized as per the needs of the company. They include various graphs that would help in customizing the overall data of the company. The other type of acquisition is customized accounting software that can be customized as per the needs of the company, these are purchased by the company and helps the company in making their own choices (Kusolpalalert, 2018). The other types of acquisition include ERP, that is enterprise resource programming in which the companies manage and integrates the important parts of the business. It is the management information system that will integrate the planning, inventory, sales, marketing, producing etc. It is the most customized and vulnerable method of accounting that the companies can adopt (Abbott & Kantor, 2017). Thus, in case of Wesfarmers the company should consider the acquisition by ERP method, that is efficient enough to support the needs of the company and contribute to the overall operations of the company and suffice to its long-term development given there are so many operations that the company must manage. Thus, the most efficient acquisition method that the company needs to follow is ERP method. ERP is the most efficient method for the management of the accounts of the company and can be done as per the overall needs and requirements of the company (Chariri, 2017).

The integrated operational flow of the company can be stated in the given flow of operations. The company has a definite sale operations and revenue operations that the company follows and that would help the company with its overall operational efficiency for long term growth and development (Chron, 2017).

In case of sales generating model, the company gets the sales order, and there is a definite sale order for the company in that regards. The company must maintain a various type of invoices like the purchase order, the general order invoices, the purchase acquisition file, management reports etc. All these needs to be maintained for management of the affairs of the company (Dichev, 2017). There are various types of accounts that the company needs to maintain and that is relevant from the overall flow of operations between the sales department and the overall revenue generation model of the company. In case the company goes for any accounting software they must see to it that they will contribute to the needs of the company and will simplify the overall process for the company and management of their books of accounts. These models are important as they help in deciding the overall flow of operations between the various departments of the company (Abbott & Kantor, 2017).

Possible Errors in the System and Fraud That Might Occur

Fraud occurs when there is weakness in the internal control of the company and there is a lack of proper management of the affairs of the company. Fraud should be taken care of and the management should carry out proper audit of their books of account to ensure that there is no lack in the system and it is secure from all ends possible (Coate & Mitschow, 2017). In this integrated system there is no segregation of duties between the members hence that must be taken care of to ensure disparity of operations and authority between all the people concerned. One more thing that company needs to consider that they must take help from experts who can help them in making the system more organized and functional. In the long run the aim should be to make the system more organized, efficient, functional and responsible so that authority can be established and flow of work is ascertained among the members of the company (Alexander, 2016). Audit of books should be done to make sure that there is no error in the system and the books are free from all kind of errors.

Accounting software packages refers to software that are built within the system to help in corelating easy accounting procedures that would include accounting based functional heads like accounts payable, accounts receivable, cash management, data management etc. in recent times due to the technology there has been tremendous growth in the accounting software usage all over the world, it simplifies the activities for the companies and help them in carrying out complex activities in a more simple manner. Growth in technology has been mostly responsible for this surge in the technological advancement in the country and has contributed a lot to the overall development of the same in different nations. There are various types of accounting software that can be found in the market and each one can be customized as per the requirement of the companies (Alsagoff, 2010). This give a flexibility with relations to their overall budget and requirements. There are professional available in the market that has made it easier for the companies to use such accounting software and contribute to their overall success. Companies hire trained professional who can perform activities with the help of these software. It is more economical for the company in all ways possible. With high amount of development there are several changes taking place in the accounting software scenario in the market and this has also led to many new competitors in the market. These products are sold based on their usage and the services that they can provide to the companies (Grundy, et al., 2017).

Development of Accounting Software Packages

As per reports as per the recent market research the current market for the accounting software will grow at the rate of 6.3 percent in the recent forecast period of 2017-2024. Previously the market total GDP was USD 3.2 Billion in 2016 and this is expected to reach to a total valuation of USD 4.4 million at the end of the forecasted period (Coate & Mitschow, 2017). This shows the huge amount of dominance that accounting software packages are having in the market and the total amount of revenue that they are generating in total, which makes it sure that in coming times this will only increase and will contribute more to the success of business in this sector. Seeing huge amount of opportunity in this sector there are large amount of growth that has occurred in this sector recently, many people have started this business and this led to increase in competition in the market due to this (Yadao, 2018).

The major leaders in this field of accounting software packages in the market are –

FreshBooks – It is the worldwide most used software in the world for freelancers and small businesses. It helps in easy tracking of invoices and ledgers and have also introduced a new system as per which the team mates can now corelate with each other based on this software. It is easy to use, agile and easily available in the market. People can customize the same as per their needs and the accounting package can be customized as per their needs.

QuickBooks – It is the largest used accounting software that are used by many big companies and multinationals and have been contributing to the accounting system of many companies. It helps in management of large amount of data for the company and simplifies the flow of it. The accountants needs to be trained to use this kind of software and its worldwide usage makes it incredible for people to coordinate their business on these software and channelize their flow of data accordingly. It is complex but can be used post training (Cayon, et al., 2017).

XERO – It is an accounting software that are used by the companies for certain specific purposes only. It enables the business owners to access the data anytime anywhere and that helps in easy management of the company data and affairs. It is mostly designed to help the small business owners and is comparatively cheap than other software. The best usage of this is that it helps the companies to perform any certain function that they want and again customize it for a bunch of activities also.

These are the top accounting software that are available in the market and what makes them the leader is that they can be easily used, they can be easily customized for the business and can contribute in making the overall operations of the business easy and seamless. It is important that the companies should first check their overall needs and then buy the software as per the requirements. Over the world there has been huge demand for the accounting software and hence companies are also taking steps in bringing new changes and making them more innovative for long term use (Vieira, et al., 2017). Competition in the market provides more options to the buyers and hence they are spoilt for choices.

Users who are buying these software faces heavy challenge about usage of these accounting software. Few of these are mentioned below –

• Expensive – Most of this software are expensive and hence people especially those have small business and start up finds it difficult to invest money in the same. It makes them difficult to buy them and moreover its installation and training also leads to extra cost for the companies. Hence it is important that this must be consider by the companies to check the overall pricing and certain software must be developed only for small businesses.
• Complexity – This software is suitable to suffice the needs of top companies who have many resources and well-equipped people to look after them. But for smaller companies it becomes difficult to install this software and then use it. Hence it becomes difficult for them to use the same. Thus, the suppliers should provide proper demo and trial free sessions so that buyers get used to the system and can test them before buying them and it would also help smaller companies who do not have enough money to buy the system(Grundy, et al., 2017).
• Technological Changes – One thing that is very much clear is that there are several technological changes that are happening again and again. This makes the prior version of the software redundant and non-usable. This increase the importance that the companies should provide timely updates so that on the technological front this software is in sync with other companies also and they can use all the new features that are present in the market. Thus, being in sync with technology is very important for companies and thus buyers always look for products that have timely updates and do not become redundant soon.

Based on the overall analysis it can be said that the future of accounting software packages is very bright given that they make the work of people easy and simplifies the entire process. It is important that effective market research must be done before investing in such software so that in future the companies do not have to face much issue (Alexander, 2016). Large amount of investment is involved and thus the overall budget of the company should also be considered. In the long run all this will lead to the success of the software companies if they consider the needs of the user while delivering the products and post that.

References

Abbott, M. & Kantor, A., 2017. Fair Value Measurement and Mandated Accounting Changes: The Case of the Victorian Rail Track Corporation. Australian accounting Review.

Alexander, F., 2016. The Changing Face of Accountability. The Journal of Higher Education, 71(4), pp. 411-431.

Alsagoff, N., 2010. Microsoft Excel as a tool for digital forensic accounting.

Cayon, E., Thorp, S. & Wu, E., 2017. Immunity and infection: Emerging and developed market sovereign spreads over the Global Financial Crisis. Emerging Markets Review.

Chariri, A., 2017. FINANCIAL REPORTING PRACTICE AS A RITUAL: UNDERSTANDING ACCOUNTING WITHIN INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK. Journal of Economics, Business and Accountancy, 14(1).

Chron, 2017. five-common-features-internal-control-system-business. [Online]
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Coate, C. & Mitschow, M., 2017. Luca Pacioli and the Role of Accounting and Business: Early Lessons in Social Responsibility. s.l.:s.n.

Dichev, I., 2017. On the conceptual foundations of financial reporting. Accounting and Business Research, 47(6), pp. 617-632.

Grundy, Q., Held, F. & Bero, L., 2017. A Social Network Analysis of the Financial Links Backing Health and Fitness Apps. American Journal of Public Health.

Kusolpalalert, A., 2018. The relationships of financial assets in financial markets during recovery period and financial crisis. AU Journal of Management, 11(1).

Maynard, J., 2017. Financial accounting reporting and analysis. second ed. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.

Vieira, R., O’Dwyer, B. & Schneider, R., 2017. Aligning Strategy and Performance Management Systems. SAGE Journals, 30(1).

Yadao, J., 2018. Forensic accountants and big data.