Accounting Information Systems And Control Planning †Free Samples

Question: Discuss about the Accounting Information Systems And Controls. Answer: FIVE in AIS Design For effective design of the new AIS for satisfaction of end user needs, Shane must undertake the following steps: The systems analysis has to be undertaken by investigating, system surveying, feasibility study, as well as the determination of the information needs alongside system requirements. The conceptual design including the evaluation of the design alternatives, preparation of design specifications, preparation of the conceptual systems design report. The physical design including output, file, and database, input, program, procedures, as well as control design. The implementation of the systems including the implementation planning, preparation of site, selection as well as training of personnel, completing documentation, test system as well as the conversion to the novel system. Operation as well as maintenance of the system Planning Systems Development Various activities must be undertaken at the different times in the course SDLC. On of such activities is planning. Shane must have plans for the long range, individual systems development project, and individual phase of every system development project. The planning remains significant phase to accomplish consistency, efficiency, cutting edge technology, lowering costs, as well as adaptability (Traina et al. 2017). The two kinds of systems development plans are required include the individual project plans created by the project teams as well as a master plan developed by the Information System steering committee (Cooper, Ezzamel and Qu 2017). The individual project plans entail a cost-benefit analysis including the developmental as well as operational needs entailing human resources, software, and hardware, alongside financial resources alongside the schedule for the various activities for the development as well as operation of the novel application. The master plan gives the specification of what the systems shall contain how it shall be developed, that shall develop it, how required resources shall be obtained, and where AIS is headed. It further provided the project status, prioritization, as well as timetables. The planning techniques are two for the scheduling as well as monitoring systems development undertakings are the program evaluation alongside the review techniques, also called PERT as well as Gantt Charts. The undertakings needed in the project are utilized to draw the PERT diagram that entails the network arrows denoting the activities which need time as well as resources alongside the nodes denoting the completion besides initiation of the undertakings. The critical path of the PERT diagram describes that which require the hugest amount of time. In case the activity on critical path is lagged, the entire project is lagged. Resources could be shifted to critical path to decrease the lag. The Gantt chart describes a bar that has project activities on left as well as time crossways the top. For individual activity, the bar of anticipation time is drawn. As the activities are finished, the bar becomes filled in. It remains easy to eyeball the chart alongside understanding the present status of the project, however, the chart does not indicate the correlation between activities in the way they shown in PERT (Nuhu, Baird and Bala Appuhamilage 2017). Specific Steps Shane should take: He should have done interviews with users affected by the alterations to comprehend prevailing systems alongside business processes, units of organization affected by alterations, procedures utilized to offer info, decisions made by users as well as info required to make such decisions, present problems faced by users, required improvements, alongside future info needs (Tsai et al. 2017) Shane should have explained the capabilities of the new system to enable users determine how to use capabilities to enhance systems-means of developers might have ignored. Simply put, workers in individual department needed to have been motivated to give suggestions for alterations alongside improvements Shane should never have assumed automatically that the items that worker for him in the past employer would work. Whereas they could have been used as starting point, Shane needed to ensure human aspects of system development is never negated. That is, employees have to purchase the novel system. As distinguished portion of the systems are developed, the alterations need to be reviewed with users affected to make sure their needed are achieved. Shane should have been increasingly proactive in the process. It is never acceptable to give users a date to react and subsequently proceed with development if he does not get to hear from the potential respondents. The users needed to have been involved actively in process of development in the course of development. This would stand that each affected user gives approval to the alterations and buy into it. Shane should not take upon himself the responsibility of determining what info users require or when users require such an info. He should never have created a novel schedule for several of the reports, altering the frequency to monthly from weekly. Shane needed not to have assumed that control features of old systems remained adequate controls. Shane must not alter the procedures for the maintenance of controls without the input of the users and approvals. Indeed, each control issue needs an approval by users. Shane can never possibly comprehend the system alongside the user needs well to make each control change a well as program testing decisions. The affected departments by change needed to have been consulted. Whereas having each department implement changes instantly could generate labour savings including whether it has been tested completely and how it interfaces with other changes. This is showcased by problems which surfaced when alterations were ushered in too soon (James et al. 2017). Incomplete instructions accompanied alterations, and particular implementation responsibility remained unassigned to departmental personnel. That, beliefs of Shane that operations individuals need to learn as they go as well as report errors as they take place, remained very bad policy of development (Nguyen et al. 2017). Documentation needed to be complete as well as back up procedures needed to be in place prior to systems conversion. THREE ways Shane violated internal control principles Shane retained most of the old control features in the novel system; but, the procedures for the maintenance of the old controls remained changed significantly. These procedures alongside control were never coordinated. More significantly, controls relevant for the novel system were never developed as well as evaluated properly (Sanchez et al. 2017). The proper backups procedures were never implemented in various areas. This placed the system alongside overall operations in the most vulnerable position. Systems, programming as well as operating documentations remained behind the schedule. Documentations need to be complete before the systems conversation happen (James et al. 2017). Separation of the duties was greatly violated by; the inventory control as well as the purchasing personnel to issue the purchases order; and payroll clerks preparing the journal entries for the processing of the payroll. FOUR weaknesses in Shanes approach There was no system analysis as well as the feasibility study. There was poor planning The system testing besides reviews were never conducted before the implementation There was little or no involvement of the users The system modules implemented were done in the absence of sufficient training, documentation as well as instruction. Recommendation for improvements Shane must perform a comprehensive system analysis that entails a feasibility study Shane must prepare a development plan, the budget, as well as the schedule for the completion of the project. An accepted plan for the implementation for the individual modules has to be formalized and strictly followed (Sledgianowski, Gomaa and Tan 2017). All the modules must be tested properly for processing, information as well as control effectiveness. The users have to partake in the system plan development, information content testing as well as controls, and the eventual implementation acceptance The novel modules must never be implemented until sufficient documentation is prepared as well as each affected organization alongside personnel have been trained appropriately (Drum, Pernsteiner and Revak 2017) References Cooper, D.J., Ezzamel, M. and Qu, S.Q., 2017. Popularizing a managementaccounting idea: The case of the balanced scorecard. ContemporaryAccounting Research. Drum, D., Pernsteiner, A. and Revak, A., 2017. Workarounds in an SAP Environment: Impacts onAccounting Information Quality. Journal of Accounting Organizational Change, 13(1). James, T.L., Wallace, L., Warkentin, M., Kim, B.C. and Collignon, S.E., 2017. Exposing Others Information on Online Social Networks (OSNs): Perceived Shared Risk, Its Determinants, and Its Influence on OSN Privacy Control Use. Information Management. Nguyen, T.T., Mia, L., Winata, L. and Chong, V.K., 2017. Effect of transformational-leadership style and management control system on managerial performance. Journal of Business Research, 70, pp.202-213. Nuhu, N.A., Baird, K. and Bala Appuhamilage, A., 2017. The adoption and success of contemporary managementaccounting practices in the public sector. Asian Review of Accounting, 25(1). Sanchez, J.M., Velez, M.L., Araujo, P. and Ramn-Jernimo, M.., 2017. Linking decision-control and decision-management uses of performance measurement systems. International Journal of Physical Distribution Logistics Management, 47(1). Sledgianowski, D., Gomaa, M. and Tan, C., 2017. Toward integration of Big Data, technology and information systems competencies into the accounting curriculum. Journal of Accounting Education. Traina, T.D., Vierra, J.P., Chen, J.C.T. and Galbraith, M.P., Traina Interactive Corp., 2017. Systems and methods of processing information and data involving digital content, digital products and/or experiences. U.S. Patent 9,536,258. Tsai, W.H., Chen, H.C., Chang, J.C. and Lee, H.L., 2017, January. The Internal Audit Performance: The Effectiveness of ERM and IT Environments. In Proceedings of the 50th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.