Essay: Accounting Information System For Smart Enterprises Implementation.

Management Involvement for Accounting Information System Development

Recently you attended a presentation by Dr Peter, renowned entrepreneur and business leader, who spoke at length about the development of an accounting information systems and, what he referred to as the ‘life cycle approach’. After the presentation you returned to your workplace and discussed the virtues of this approach with your boss, Alex. Alex was extremely interested because he has become aware that the current accounting information systems is inadequate for the developing needs of the business. He asked you to do a number of things for him in your ‘new role’ as the Accounting Information Systems Development Officer.

1. Write a brief report identifying the role that would be expected of the management team in the development and design of a new accounting information system. The underlying issue is really the role you would expect Alex “your boss” to play.

2. Would you expect that the people who will use the new system should have a role in any analysis leading up to, in the selection of and implementation of the new accounting information system should one be selected?

3. Write a clear and comprehensive report on what would be involved in the adoption of a life cycle approach to adopting a new accounting information system. Specifically identify the stages that would need to be engaged in, and staff likely to be involved. Alex, your boss, also wishes to know whether consultant costs would be incurred?

Part 2:
As the internal auditor for Smart Enterprises, you have been asked to document the company’s payroll processing system. Based on your documentation, Smart Enterprises hopes to develop a plan for revising the current system to eliminate unnecessary delays in pay check processing. The head payroll clerk explained the system:

The payroll processing system at Smart Enterprises is fairly simple. Time data are recorded in each department using time cards and clocks. It is annoying, however, when people forget to punch out at night, and we have to record their time by hand. At the end of the period, our payroll clerks enter the time card data into a payroll file for processing. Our clerks are pretty good—though I’ve had to make my share of corrections when they mess up the data entry.

Before the payroll file is processed for the current period, human resources sends us personnel changes, such as increases in pay rates and new employees. Our clerks enter this data into the payroll file. Usually, when mistakes get back to us, it’s because human resources is recording the wrong pay rate or an employee has left and the department forgets to remove the record.

The data are processed and individual employee pay checks are generated. Several reports are generated for management, though I don’t know what they do with them. In addition, the government requires regular federal and state withholding reports for tax purposes. Currently, the system generates these reports automatically, which is nice.

You are required to:

1.Prepare a context diagram and Level 0 DFD to document the payroll processing system at Smart Enterprises.

2.Prepare a document flowchart to document the payroll processing system at Smart Enterprises.

In the current era there has been a huge development in the field of information technology. The organization and the operations within the organizations are being evaluated and the implemented efficiently with the help of the information technology. The accounting information system is one of the major aspect for the business of the organizations. The major procedures in the system are the purchase and the payroll procedures. The report is concerned with the case of the Smart enterprises. The organization is looking to implement a counting information system for their organization and hence, I as the Accounting Information Systems Development Officer have been contacted to provide the organization with the possible solutions for the system.

The report consists the analysis of the system that has been conducted by me and the details of different type of aspects of the system has been described in this report. The illustration has also been provided for the organizations to understand the process of the accounting information that is to be implemented for the organization.

This part of the description is aimed towards the management team and Alex in general so that the system implementation plan can be understood by them. The management team would be expected to play an efficient role in the design and development of the system that has been asked of them. The management team should be able to specify clearly the requirements of the system and also maintain the development of the accounting system for the organization. The success of the system would be depending on the relationship in between the management and the employees working in the lower level of the organization. The management team should also be maintaining a good communication channel so that they can communicate with the staffs in the lower level efficiently. It is a mandatory requirement that the management maintains a general thought about the system and provide useful inputs towards the maintenance of the system and also this would be useful it they provide their imputs about the design of the system and also the organization would be benefitted to a great extent if the management team monitors the whole system and provides useful feedbacks at each and every step of development of the system. The management system also maintains an efficient quality check and regularly update the system and check the requirements. The team should also keep in mind that the system development is to be completed within the provided scope and the budget allocated to them.  

Stakeholders in Accounting Information System Development

This part of the report covers the discussion on the topics of analysis regarding the stakeholders of the system. The main stakeholders associated with the system would be the staffs of the system since they are the ones that would be using the system and performing all the functional requirements on the system for the organization.  The system is to be designed according to the requirements of the staffs of the organization. Hence, it is a must that the staffs get accustomed to the system and learn all the main functions of the system and perform the procedures of the system efficiently. It is also a must that the stakeholders get an efficient training on the system and they are required to perform efficiently during the training sessions. The staffs should also be aware of the organizational procedures and the make use of the system efficiently so that they can get to make the system efficient. Collaboration of the organizational procedures with the methods implemented in the system would mean that both the efficiency of the system and the business goes up significantly. The staffs should also understand the input and output of the system so they would know exactly which data to process in the system. The payroll process of the organization would be handled by the system and this process involves the payment of the salaries to the staffs of the system and hence the staff of the organization can be easily summed up as the primary stakeholder of the system. Hence, it is important that they play an important role in the design and the development of the system.

The Smart Enterprises organization would be able to achieve a greater level of success after the accounting information system for the organization has been developed effectively. Firstly, the installation of new system in the organization would help in increasing the productivity of the organization and also the system help in getting the data straight for the system. This implementation would also affect the financial aspect of the system to a great level and this system help the organization is management of their financial data very efficiently. The system also provides additional benefits to the organization on the quality assurance aspect of the products that are delivered by the organization.

The information system would keep an account of the operations that are taking place within the organisation. It would help in automating all the procedures of the organization this would help the organization speeding up the development of the different aspects of their business such as the financial balance statement and the also help in the calculation of large amount of data that take place for the transactions in the system.

Benefits of Implementing an Accounting Information System for Smart Enterprises

In addition to this, it is to be noted the old system consists of various parts which are not compatible with the new system and these aspects of the system require a major change. The automated procedures within the organization would be helpful to the organization and this would reduce the response time of the of the organization to great extent. This system would also help the administrator of the organization to monitor over the system performances and the overall performances of the organization.

The waterfall mode has been adopted the development of the system for the organization. This is done as the requirements for the development of the system and the budget and the schedule criteria for the system has been predefined and hence the selection of the waterfall model for the development of the system is justified perfectly. At first the system has to be analysed and the designing of the system has to be done. Additionally, before the development and the implementation of the system the organization has to go through the procurement procedures and this process the involves the tasks of identifying the hardware and software requirements and also the system requirements associated with it.

Conclusion:

The report is concerned with the description of the case of the Smart Enterprise and the details regarding the development of the system for the organization has been described in the report. The Accounting information system that is to be developed for the organization would be benefitting them in various aspects of their business. I have been portrayed in this report playing two roles as per the requirement of the organization. The roles played by me are that of the Accounting Information Systems Development Officer and the internal auditor for Smart Enterprises. The description have been provide in the assignment from both point of view.

References:

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