Topic 5 – Accounting information system applications – page 104
Study Unit 14: Selecting an appropriate accounting information system – page 105
2 Available AIS’s – page 105
An entry-level AIS features
- basic features
- one-user access
- does not provide for segregation of duties
- purchased off the shelf
- allow for basic set-up information
- have the least number of reports available
- will not include advanced security controls.
Examples include the following:
- Sage Pastel Xpress Start-Up (www.pastel.co.za)
- QuickBooks Online Simple Start (www.quickbooks.co.za)
- Palladium Individual (palladium.co.za)
Small to medium organisation’s AIS features
- users (usually between 3 and 5)
- more standard reports,
- setting of user permissions and passwords.
Examples include the following:
- Sage Pastel Xpress Advantage (www.pastel.co.za)
- QuickBooks Online Simple Start (www.quickbooks.co.za)
- Palladium Individual (palladium.co.za)
Enterprise level organisations features
- is usually a module in an ERP system.
- integrates with the organisations other information systems
- features such as multiple currencies and multiple users
- The implementation period can be extensive
Examples include the following:
- Sage 300 (http://www.sageerp.co.za/sage-300/)
- Pastel Evolution (www.pastel.co.za)
- SAP ERP (http://go.sap.com/africa/product/enterprise-management.html)
- Microsoft Dynamics ERP (https://www.microsoft.com/en-za/dynamics/ERP.aspx)
3 Selecting an appropriate AIS – page 107
The acquisition and implementation of an AIS can require a substantial investment in time and money. It is therefore essential that the AIS one purchases match the organisations requirements as closely as possible.
The organisation –
- Must initially be determined what are the requirements.
- Must include planned future growth.
- Must obtain input from everyone who will use the system
- Must get information from third-party consultants
Budget.
Money will always be a constraint for any organisation because organisations can only afford to spend so much on a system before it becomes uneconomical
Implementation period.
In the same way, as the organisation needs to budget for the costs, it also has to budget and plan for the time it will take to implement the AIS.
3.2 Investigate individual accounting information systems
Organisations should consider the following:
- requirement matching
- costs
- ease of use
- hardware requirements
- integration
- implementation
- flexibility
- documentation quality
- country suitability
- upgrades
- scalability
- software vendor
- support and training
4 Risks and controls – page 109
In AIN1501, you learned about the risks, threats, and vulnerabilities faced by organisations information systems. As part of the organisations information systems, its AIS also faces these risks, threats, and vulnerabilities.
Another threat faced by AISs is the possible loss or partial loss of data. This loss is not always caused by a computer being physically destroyed or stolen – data corruption is also a huge threat. A power surge can often cause data corruption. To protect a financial system against data loss, it is crucial to make back-ups regularly. These backups will allow the organisation to restore the data to the point the last backup was made. The importance of making regular backups cannot be emphasised enough. We referred to backups in study unit 7 and will mention them again in topic 6.
The following chapter will be covered in the working example of an assignment.
Please read through these chapters.
Study unit 15: Getting Started on Pastel Partner – page 111
Study unit 16: Cust/Supp/Inv/GL- page 150
Study unit 17: Process Transactions – page 169
Study unit 18: Retrieve Information and Sundry Processing – page 190
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