Sample Accounting Information Systems

 ACCT6001 Accounting Information Systems Sample

Question:

Background

Good Group Pty Ltd is a small firm located in Sydney. The company specialises in providing its customers with low-cost homewares. The firm was established 2 years ago and has recently experienced operational inefficiencies and accounting errors. You have been hired to evaluate Good Group’s business processes which are described in the following paragraphs.

Business Processes

At Good Group, the revenue processes are conducted by employees including sales staff, warehouse staff, an accountant, and collection clerk. A description of their duties are as follows:

• Sales staff receive customer orders by email and prepare a four-copy sales order form. One copy is filed, one copy goes to the warehouse staff, one copy goes to the accountant, and one copy is posted to the customer.

• After receiving sales orders, warehouse staff prepare a packing slip, take the proper items from the warehouse, and ship them with the packing slip enclosed. The sales order is stamped with the ship date, and the shipping log is updated. The sales order is filed by customer number. If the ordered goods are not in stock, the customer is notified and the sale does not proceed. When sales cannot proceed because there is no stock, the warehouse staff will order the items to replenish stock to their desired levels.

• After receiving the sales order from sales staff, the accountant reviews the customer records and either approves or disapproves customer credit. If the customer’s credit is approved, the sales order is stamped “approved”. The accountant then prints two copies of the invoice. One copy is posted to the customer and one copy goes to the collection clerk. Finally, the accountant matches the approved sales order to the invoice and files these by customer number.

• After receiving a copy of the invoice, the collection clerk posts the sale to the sales journal and the accounts receivable subsidiary ledger. Daily totals from the sales journal are sent to the accountant who posts these sales summaries to the general ledger.

• If the customer pays by cheque, the collection clerk stamps the cheque “For Deposit Only” and records it in the accounts receivable subsidiary ledger. The cheque is also recorded in the cash receipts journal by the collection clerk. Once this information is entered into the ledgers, the collection clerk deposits cheques in the bank account weekly. For invoices paid using electronic banking, receipts are entered into the accounts receivable and cash book ledgers at the end of each week.

• The accountant receives a monthly summary of cash receipts from the collection clerk. The accountant records these summaries in the general ledger. The accounts receivable ledger is reviewed monthly by the accountant and phone calls are made to customers that have not paid their invoices within three months.

Required

1. Draw a business process map to reflect the processes at Good Group Ltd (include swimlanes in your diagram).
2. Identify strengths and weaknesses in the existing system including the internal controls used
3. Research and report on ways to improve the business processes (include references to support your suggestions).
4. Draw a new business process model that outlines your suggested improvements
5. Include in the Appendix of your report, minutes of meetings held between group members (Include a list of actionable tasks, team members responsible for those tasks, deadlines, and progress towards completing tasks).
 

Answer

Introduction

The business process map has helped to understand the steps of organizational procedure regarding the completion of several tasks such as ordering a product, hiring employees, and employee engagement. This report has described efficient business process map based of the activities of good group pvt ltd. and the strengths and weakness of this company. Additionally, improving ways and new business models has been evaluated for developing suggested improvements.
Business process map

According to business process mapping, good groups can identify who, what, how, when, and where and analyse the structure by why. With the help of business process mapping, the nation can create easy flow charts and diagrams by defining the factors with several symbols such as circles and arrows, diamonds, and rectangles according to business activities. Based on Mejri, Ghannouchi & Martinho (2016), business process management has focused on enhancing flexibility, variability and developing the growth of access to the opportunity superiorly. According to business process mapping, good group private limited has included sales top warehouse collection clerk and accountant and described the duties accordingly. The cell stops will receive orders from plants with the help of a digital platform and prepare different copies of sales forms.

Sales form copies will be sent to the warehouse staff accountant and collection clerk. After receiving the sales form, the sales staff has focused on packaging and sitting structure with proper items from the warehouse and enclosed the packing procedure. The sales order will be filled by the consumer number. The consumers have been notified if the product is not in stock from the warehouse staff section. According to private limits the warehouse stops are not able to proceed with the sales as there is no particular stock of products, stops will reorder plenty of items for replenishing stocks based on their desired level. As opined by AbdEllatif, Farhan & Shehata (2018), business process mapping has helped to evaluate the factors regarding business development and represent the important solutions regarding organizational development. After that the same staff shift sales order form and has completed a review with the help of an accountant based on customer records and approved by the customer credit points.

Customer credits have approved the sales order and developed two copies of invoices for the customer and collection clerk. After matching the approved sales order, the accountant has filed the consumer number based on their products. The collection clerk has contacted the sales journal after receiving the copy of the invoice based on consumers' orders and posted the sales to accounts receivable ledgers. Besides that, the regular number of cells in the sales journal has been sent to the accountant who has posted the summary of sales to the general ledger. Moreover, the consumer can't pay the number of products by cheque and it has been collected by the collection clerk.

The checking forms from the consumer's section are only collected if those are only for deposit and create records in the accounts receivable ledgers. As per the view of Fleac? & Fleac? (2016), business process mapping structure has helped to analyse organizational development approaches and completed the overview of business growth. The amount of cheque has been recorded in the cash received journal by the collection clerk and the entered information has been deposited through cheque in the bank within a week. The invoices have been paid through electronic banking and receipt has been sent into account receivable and cashbook letters at the end of each week. After summarizing account receivables of a month, ships have been collected from the collection clerk. Chords of the accountant have been summarized by general Ledgers. The account receivables ledgers have been reviewed by accounts in a month and calls have been made to the consumers if the payment of invoices has not been received within three months.

Strengths and weaknesses of the existing system

Strengths

Good group pty ltd has become specialist in developing low-cost home application and maintain a good consumer relationship. In the initial 2 periods, they have experienced sufficient operational inefficiencies and critical accounting errors. They have included sales tab warehouse staff accountant and collection clerk to mitigate conflicts regarding accounting errors in their business organization. By segmenting the entire accounting section and in sales staff warehouse staff accountant and collection card it has become a beneficial perspective for this organization for processing its revenue in each financial year. Cell stop can prepare full copies of the sales order form which has helped to understand the requirements from transaction to the warehouse staff accountant and understand the reliability of organization by consumers. With the help of those sales orders, warehouse staff can usually prepare packing slips with proper items from the stock of the warehouse and shift the items to consumers in a limited time period.

Although if the stock is unable to fulfill the requirements of the consumer section the warehouse staff can notify the consumer through email and sales order as well as replenish the stock according to their desired level. On the other hand, accountant 10 reviews the record of consumers according to the sales order form and approves or disapproves the credit of consumers. The accountant review collection clerk can approve the sales order according to the invoices to the consumer number. Additionally, after obtaining the entire payment through cheque, the collection clerk can deposit the amount of cheque through electronic banking and electronic receipts into the account receivables. Moreover, the accountant has received the summarization of cash receipt of a month from the collection flag which has helped them to understand and review 2 on clarity of payment and they can make phone calls to the consumers for unpaid products within 3 months.

Weakness

There are sufficient strengths for good group private limited in the allocation of employees in their internal accounting section. Allocation of employees in sales staff warehouse staff and accountant and collection clerk can create conflicts in their responsibilities due to the obstacles in accounting errors. According to sales staff, it has become a hard task to prepare copies of cells from forms and send them to warehouse staff, accountants and customers regularly. Moreover, the staff can create challenges for the organization as they can take products from the stock and provide a review of blank stocks. Additionally, the approval of sales orders can create biasing errors as the accountant has reviewed the customer records and approved the products. Without properly reviewing customer records there are higher chances of biasing issues in approval of customer care needs and their products. Decide that if the collection clerk is unable to provide sales journals to account receivable ledgers there can be a delay in summarizing sales amount to the general ledger. On the other hand, payment through cheque can create critical challenges for the good group as the failure of a cheque can be a sufficient delay in obtaining products amount after the definition of consumer requirements. Apart from this, there are several types of consumers, some of them are not willing to pay the payment of their products immediately and there is a chance of inefficient summarizing of Cancer by an accountant and they have to make phone calls to the consumers who had not paid the amount of invoice within 3 months of product celebration.

Ways to improve business process

It is essential to improve the business process by streamlining task factors for improving the efficiency of the organization. Good group private limited has gone through several organizational steps in order to generate a business report for resolving consumer complaints including new clients and developing new products. The process should focus on formal and informal procedures and well-established steps to develop receiving and submitting invoices by developing good relationships with clients. As opined by Sjödin et al. (2021), inclusion of artificial intelligence technique can be highly helpful for transformation of business development and develop new business model capabilities. Improvement of business processes is essential for mitigating numerous problems such as the frustration of colleague duplication of work practice, increment of cost of products, wastage of resources, development of bottlenecks, and complaints from consumer sections regarding product quality and good services. As cited by Estevão, Lopes & Penela (2022), the development of a favourable business environment can be a reason for improving risk factors due to higher chances of error occurrence. For improving the organizational procedure good group private limited should focus on business processing for improving documentation of flowchart and swim lane diagram.

Besides that, swim lane diagrams have developed complexity and superiority regarding the involvement of people. It is essential for a good group to include detailed information of sub-steps by consulting organizational executives properly without overlooking any minor factors. According to Vemuri et al. (2021), with the help of IoT technology, business organizations can enhance the impact of the business environment by analysing the business procedures good group private limited can understand the reason for frustration from the consumer section and which factors of an organization can efficiently create bottlenecks. As reported by Li, Voorneveld & de Koster (2021), forecasting model based on technology development and changes in social perspective has helped business organization during Covid pandemic situation. Moreover, they can understand the reason for the increment of the cost of products and by which steps they can reduce critical problems. Following root cause analysis, causes effect analysis and five wise analyses can be utilized in order to trace the particular problems from the depth of organizational activities and develop fixing problems by analysing the symptoms.

  Additionally redesigning the entire business process, they can use new approaches by changing early stages. Identifying brainstorming they can note down the changes and cost factors involved with business understanding. As stated by Chen et al. (2018), information system analysis can be helpful for mitigating risk compliance and developing the factors regarding fundamental benefits. Moreover, risk analysis and impact analysis can be utilized for understanding the failures, and by considering customer experience in mapping the organization can focus on consumer engagement. With the help of acquiring resources and proper resource management, they can develop the communication between HR management and the IT section based on a beneficial perspective. According to Huang et al. (2021), business mapping model of emotional intelligence has become an important weapon for modern developed E-commerce operational activities. Implementation and communication changes in business organizations can be beneficial for the development of organizational growth. Utilizing the change curve and Kotter's 8 step change model can be beneficial for overcoming the resistance regarding implementation and communication changes. Reviewing small improvements regularly can reduce frustrating factors from the consumer section and in monitoring procedure in order to fix critical problems.

New business process model

The organization can develop sustainable business reports in order to resolve complaints from the consumer section and include new clients by developing new products based on the requirements of clients. With the help of formal and informal procedures, they can easily mitigate challenges and conflicts in accounting errors and duplication of work practices. In the new business model, they can maintain a sustainable price for low-cost products in order to maintain a good relationship and develop consumer engagement.

By utilizing organizational flowchart and swim lane diagrams good group private limited can document the organization procedure and reduce the occurrence of accounting error sufficiently. In the new business model, good group private limited can use a risk analysis and impact analysis for understanding the failures and understand the customer experience by developing process mapping. With the help of SWOT analysis and Kotter's analysis, they can understand the changes strengths, and opportunities for organizational growth and reduce the weaknesses and threats from the business practices.

Conclusion

The new business process model has helped organizations to understand and optimize the work practices by developing a visual representation of fruitful business procedures. Its cab be concluded that by evaluating the factors of suggested improvement, good group put ltd cab easily create a new business model for their business growth.  

Reference

AbdEllatif, M., Farhan, M. S., & Shehata, N. S. (2018). Overcoming business process reengineering obstacles using ontology-based knowledge map methodology. Future Computing and Informatics Journal, 3(1), 7-28.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fcij.2017.10.006

Chen, T., Wang, W., Indulska, M., & Sadiq, S. (2018, September). Business process and rule integration approaches-an empirical analysis. In International Conference on Business Process Management (pp. 37-52). Springer, Cham.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.is.2021.101901

Estevão, J., Lopes, J. D., & Penela, D. (2022). The importance of the business environment for the informal economy: Evidence from the Doing Business ranking. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 174, 121288.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2021.121288

Fleac?, E., & Fleac?, B. (2016). The business process management map–an effective means for managing the enterprise value chain. Procedia Technology, 22, 954-960.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.protcy.2016.01.096

Huang, H., Kaigang, Y. I., Kumar, R. L., & Praveena, V. (2021). Category theory-based emotional intelligence mapping model for consumer-E-business to improve E-commerce. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 101631.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2021.101631

Joshi, A., Benitez, J., Huygh, T., Ruiz, L., & De Haes, S. (2021). Impact of IT governance process capability on business performance: Theory and empirical evidence. Decision Support Systems, 113668.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2021.113668

Li, X., Voorneveld, M., & de Koster, R. (2021). Business Transformation in an Age of Turbulence-Lessons Learned from COVID-19. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 121452.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2021.121452

Mejri, A., Ghannouchi, S. A., & Martinho, R. (2016). Representing business process flexibility using concept maps. Procedia Computer Science, 100, 1260-1268.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2016.09.164

Sarasini, S., & Langeland, O. (2021). Business model innovation as a process for transforming user mobility practices. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 39, 229-248.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2021.04.005

Sjödin, D., Parida, V., Palmié, M., & Wincent, J. (2021). How AI capabilities enable business model innovation: Scaling AI through co-evolutionary processes and feedback loops. Journal of Business Research, 134, 574-587.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.05.009

Vemuri, V. P., Naik, V. R., Chaudhary, V., RameshBabu, K., & Mengstie, M. (2021). Analyzing the use of internet of things (IoT) in artificial intelligence and its impact on business environment. Materials Today: Proceedings.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2021.11.264