Business Resource Planning System †Free Samples to Students

Question: Discuss about the Business Resource Planning System. Answer: Introduction It is not common for businesses to operate without having accounting departments. The success of a business in most cases depends on the organizational structure of that company, which also often keeps on changing as the business grows. With an increase in business transactions, accounting has continually to become a very important aspect of an organization or business since the financial success or performance of the business is measured by the information provided in the company financial statements (Peppard and Ward, 2016, p. 2). It has led to development, adoption, and implementation of accounting software packages by many businesses or companies in a move to improve their operations and services to their clients. One of the companies recognized for the use of accounting packages in Australia is the Greenberg and Co. Chartered Accountants which are known for offering quality financial solutions to their clients. This study, therefore, seeks to provide an understanding of strategi c information systems employed in this company with a focus on the accounting information packages by understanding the current company structure and some of their operational challenges as well as understanding its interaction with accounting information software. Accounting information softwares are business applications software that has been developed or designed to record as well as process accounting transactions within a business by use of functional models. Some of the common modules include business trail balance, company payroll, billing, accounts payables and accounts receivable as well as a company or business general ledgers. Such accounting software functions as accounting information systems or strategic information systems (Cassidy, 2016, p. 3). The strategic information systems function as systems which merge business technology and business strategic planning to bring about a change in an organizational structure to a better on as well as help the company or business to execute its objectives as well as improve to meet the responses of the dynamic market conditions. The success of any business is dependent on its structure. Business structures are developed to help the company achieve its goals and objectives. Greenberg Co Company is dedicated to providing its clients with solutions to their business problems as well as help to come up with effective planning strategies for their prospective creditors. Organization structure defines the hierarchy as well as the scope of acceptable behavior within an organization (Lim and Perrin, 2014, p. 3). It can as well help or hinder the progress of a business towards accomplishing its goals. The common business structures used by many companies include functional, divisional as well as matrix structures. The functional structure allows each portion of a business to be grouped according to its purpose and its found to work well for the small businesses. The divisional structure is used mostly by large companies which operate in a wide geographical area. It helps meet the needs of the company more rapidly and specifically, however, its costly because of the size and scope of the business. On the other hand, a matrix structure is a hybrid of both the divisional and functional structure (Broida and Flora, 2015, p. 47). It provides the organization to enjoy both the benefits of the functional structure as well as those of the divisional structure. The Greenberg Co Company therefore due to its size and scope of its operations employs the use of the divisional structure. This allows the company to perform its activities and meet the demands of their customers as well as their employees. However, the company is experiencing some operational problems in providing services to their clients resulting from inefficiencies and financial errors due to its extensive nature of its business operations and its client base. In most case, the business has failed to meet the specific demands of its clients due to the large data especially the financial data and therefore enhancing room for errors in their service provision (Chang, 2016, p.1). A good company structure would allow the company make efficiency gains, poses the ability to poses or facilitate business restructuring as well as become flexible in rewarding and monitoring its key employees. For the company to achieve more efficiency and reduce common errors, the company needs to acquire an information system that will help them integrate their services. It can either obtain commercial software, custom software or ERP software. However, the decision of the acquisition of information system is depended on the existing structure of the company or business. Based on the structure the company needs therefore to modify the application for the employees as well as integrate it to create a systematic and coherent information system structure for the company. The commercial software is usually designed or developed for commercial purposes for sale to end-user and therefore may not meet the needs of the company to improve efficiency as it may not customize to the needs of the company. On the other hand, the custom software is specifically designed to company, organization or end user-specific needs (Starinsky, 2016, p. 4). However due to the nature and size of the operations of the Greenberg Company which involve different clients the software may not be efficient to meet the clients needs efficiently. The company, therefore, needs to adopt ERP software which allows the company an opportunity to use a system of company integrated applications to manage the business and automate the company back office related functions, services, and human resource functions. The company will be in a position, therefore, to integrate specific needs of the clients into the structure, automate some of the repetitive functions of the company such as some financial inquiries by clients on their financial reports or even overall business client services. For the Greenberg Co Company to achieve success in selling its financial products to their clients, it needs also to develop a system flowchart of the sales procedures in order to achieve maximum effectiveness to meet the demands of their clients. A flowchart represents some organizational steps, tasks, and decisions which the organization or company needs to take to achieve maximum effectiveness and success in its service provision to their clients. The figure below is a sample of a sales flow chart that can be developed or adopted by the Greenberg Company. The product assessment step gives the company an opportunity to evaluate the product after production and see whether the product qualities meet the demands of their customers or clients. The company will then develop a sale approach focusing on their prospective markets and develop the strategies to enter new markets (Mas et al. 2014, p. 98). It then assesses the different needs of their clients; if they meet the needs of their customers, the products are presented to their clients as well as meeting their clients objections and also commit themselves to the clients by offering to offer more services if called upon and lastly the company conducts a follow-up to get feedback from their clients on effectiveness of the product to the clients and the market at large. However, the system is subject to departmental control where the sales department may seem to make most decisions about the company products. Most decisions may seem to rely on the top management and not involving the emplo yees. This may end up being frauds in sales returns and proceeds. Due to the growth of the companys operations and frauds which may result from lack of clarity on sales returns the company, therefore, needs to develop or adopt an accounting software package that will help the company to record and process its accounting transactions using functional financial modules. The company can develop modules including accounts payables, general ledgers, payroll modules, billing as well as trial balance modules (Mueller et al. 2014, pg. 651). A company can have an option to choose from a variety of accounting packages including Quick Books, MYOB, Cash flow managers, Zero-online, sage among others. However the choice of the accounting package is depended on the ability of the system to calculate all payroll requirements, the ability to track the records of stocks, work in progress, the job orders and other tasks management requirements, the ability to handle multiple bank accounts as well as ability to separate financial records for each business or departmen ts (Blount et al. 2016, pg. 190). Based on the operations of the company as well as the scope and size of the company the company can adopt the use of Quick books which has been rated as one of the best accounting software due to the collections of the features it offers to its customers or users. The company can develop a number of company accounts; keep a track of company stock, debtors, creditors, suppliers, purchases as well as financial reports among other features. The growth of the company has however not been great as compared to her competitors in the market. However, the company has a relatively large market share with its services being provided to over 54 countries. It has relatively over 500 000 employees and controls a few other companies through partnerships. The company faces stiff competition from other firms dealing with similar products and offering nearly the same services with the greatest challenge and competition arising from the Walker Wayland chartered accountants company which has been the most growing company over the past years in Australia (Hafeez and Andersen, 2014, p. 3). The company has over 70 percent growth rate since 2011 and has a network of over 10other accounting firms. The acquisition of the regional accounting firms has been the source of its success in the industry which has provided the company with a great competitive advantage over her competitors. Acquisition of the small regional accounting firms reduced the competition the company was facing in the market as well as improved or increased the company client base or coverage and therefore increasing the company economies of scale (Geary et al. 2014, pg. 701). It also acquired the skills from other companies and integrated them to its operations leading to excellent service provision to their clients. The ability to meet diverse client needs in the market has also increased the company competitive advantage; however, the firm enjoys a competitive advantage due to the low cost of operation which also allows them to offer relatively cheaper products to their clients. The development and adoption of an accounting software package by the company have also brought some challenges to the employees and other users of the packages. One of the challenges has been lack of compatibility with the company programs. Since the system is not customized in most case the company uses the ERP system which only integrates the different applications modules of the company (Seethamraju, 2015, p. 490). Therefore in some businesses or departments, the system has not been effective due to this challenge of compatibility. The other common challenge has been the software has not been user-friendly to the employees. It is affected by the number restrictions of access to the software and the users cannot customize them according to their preferences and lastly the system has provided a challenge of security as many users are concerned since all these services are offered online or on the internet where the data can be accessed by foreign users (Starinsky, 2016, p. 12). Conclusion From the analysis above, it is evident that the company should seek to integrate these functions by adopting an ERP system. The ERP system adopted needs to be compatible with their current program as well as contains appropriate security features to enhance the security of the company data. It should also allow customizing features so that the system can be more users friendly. It is hence a system that will ensure the productivity, accounting management, and the general performance of the organization improves. List of References Peppard, J. and Ward, J., 2016. The strategic management of information systems: Building a digital strategy. John Wiley Sons. Cassidy, A., 2016. A practical guide to information systems strategic planning. CRC press. Starinsky, R.W., 2016. Maximizing business performance through software packages: Best practices for justification, selection, and implementation. CRC Press. Mas, J.F., Kolb, M., Paegelow, M., Olmedo, M.T.C. and Houet, T., 2014. Inductive pattern-based land use/cover change models: A comparison of four software packages. 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