Usage of Accounting Software Packages in Australia Free-Samples

Question: Write a Literature Review on the Usage of Accounting Software Packages in Australia. Answer: In this part, I will review The Grace Hotel which is located in Sydney`s central business district, Australia. The variety of amenities provided by this hotel includes a restaurant, laundry facilities, indoor pool, quality accommodation, free Wi-Fi and much more. Being a large and complex entity in the hotel industry, the hotel relies heavily on accounting software packages to run a majority of its operations, if not all. The present organizational structure of the hotel An entity`s organizational structure defines how makers of decisions coordinate their work in pursuit of a common objective (Ilaria, 2013). This means that all the activities and decisions within an institution are geared towards attaining the overall goals of the organization. As such, the various organizational departments in an entity are normally linked up in a cohesive manner to ensure that all their operations contribute to the common goal set by the entity. Organizational structure has two paramount goals namely; to promote the flow of information within the entity to lower decision making uncertainty and to integrate conduct across the organization`s parts to enhance coordination (Virginia, 2009). According to her, it involves task allocation concepts and coordination. The hotel`s ideal organizational structure is vividly illustrated below. Below the executive chef, we have preps, line cooks, and tray assembly. The other subordinate employees include sanitation workers, dishwashers, laundry, room attendants, security personnel, waiters and waitresses among several others. Possible operational challenges linked to the above structure Every other organization is bound to face operational problems connected to its design of the organizational structure. The most common and evident setback of the above structure is rigid bureaucracy usually attributed to the hierarchy complexities in such entities. This leads to complex and tedious procedures in carrying out daily activities in the entity. Other regular problems are the issues of demoralization and discouragement experienced by the junior staff to contribute new ideas in the firm due to the fear of the top management usually associated with some withdrawal. This means that the junior workforce is in most times discouraged from voicing their views or ideas concerning the organization. However, it is indispensable for entities to establish structures and management control systems that vary from mechanical to organic and from autocratic to democratic accordingly (Jackson, et al., 2012). This means that it is essential for organizations to embrace the culture of fully involving every employee in the running of the firm. This should mainly entail giving them equal opportunities to express themselves freely and participate in the decision making within the organization. The management control systems should too be wholesome and accommodative rather than being inflexible. Hotel general managers have direct responsibility for their properties and hence are normally under great pressure to exhibit short-term results (Michael Denney, 2011). This means that the managers need to ensure that every piece of the organization`s assets is well taken care of especially from damage by either the workforce or customers. Additionally, they are expected to deliver particularly on a daily basis for an overall excellent performance. A majority of service centred challenges in hotels must be resolved fast or not at all (Michael Denney, 2011). This implies that the daily problems faced by hoteliers need to be solved with immediacy and in an efficient manner. This will greatly save on time and use it in other productive activities. The adoption of these approaches will enable the entity to maximize output and at the same time maintain a highly motivated and loyal pool of employees. The possible adoption system method for the firm The Grace Hotel is a complex and huge company whose operations follow sophisticated channels on a daily basis and this is chiefly attributed to its wide variety of amenities and services coupled with its immense customer base. As such, the best and most likely acquisition method would be the custom software since it will allow the company to cater for its variety of accounting needs. It means that the custom software will be able to accommodate all the requirements and needs of the hotel and in a unique manner. On the contrary, commercial software is normally developed to suit the needs of a wide range of customers (Leslie Andrea, 2016). This implies that it is accessible to different business sizes. Moreover, various accounting software products are accessible to businesses of varied sizes and the ones used by huge companies are frequently more sophisticated (James Robert, 2007). This means that large firms acquire complex ones. However, the best one for Grace Hotel would be the custom software since the entity is a more complex one. This will allow the hotel to efficaciously execute its various operations especially maintaining a healthy accounts records, invoices, bank statements, payment vouchers, sales, ticket booking and purchases records among several others. The acquisition of the custom accounting software is quite an expensive venture but the most suitable for large entities worldwide. As such, the above-mentioned hotel would adopt custom software due to other factors like its financial capabilities and the complexity of its day to day operations. However, custom accounting software may not be compatible with the existing accounting and computer systems of an organization (Jeffrey Kelvin, 2013). As such, it has become the main challenge which gives headaches to most medium and large size companies that are adopting the custom software to be employed in running their daily operations. The system flowchart of the entity sales procedures A system flowchart illustrates the processes which occur within the system and the decisions which are made (Paul, et al., 2016). They go on to say that it normally majors on the system logic rather than the data found within the system and that it may represent a complete system or only part of a system. This implies that the reasoning within the system is the key factor of the flowchart. As such, there is ease of following the order of the activities within the system flowchart of the hotel`s sales procedures particularly for the management and the marketing team. The most paramount merit of a flowchart is the visual appeal it possesses, which enables a quick follow-up of the sequence of events constituted within the flowchart and consequently saves on time. The Grace Hotel`s sales procedures systems flowchart would be in the following form shown below. The above flowchart is normally the ideal one for such a large company. The hotel awards priority to its pool of existing customers and the potential ones too and as such, this gives the hotel a remarkable competitive merit in the profitable yet risky sector, especially in the country. The simplified flowchart ensures that less time is spent in designing efficient and effective marketing strategies while maximizing the output. Possible frauds and control hiccups in the system As nature would have it, there is no single system which is devoid of problems may it be internal or external. As such, the custom software is not an exception. The possible frauds associated with this software system include inaccurate and incomplete accounting systems and reports (Leslie Andrea, 2016). This is particularly engineered by the staff member operating the system. However, according to them, an organization which keeps a commendable accounting system and IT internal controls and ethical conduct values will be less likely to face fraud. The evolution and adoption of accounting software packages Towards the end of the 1950s and the start of 1960s, the accounting and financial information emerged as a chief automation candidate because of its repetitive nature and bulky volume (Ashutosh, 2006). He goes on to add that early accounting software run on mainframe systems was usually written in programing languages like Assembler, COBOL, RPG, and FORTRAN. However, he adds that these accounting packages were normally created by programmers within the entity and was meant to resolve certain challenges. According to him, a large number of today`s accounting software organizations like Macola were established in the early 1980s. The software has been significantly adopted by many entities globally. The present market size Today`s market size for accounting software packages is large and is increasing at a noticeable pace. The wide segments in the market comprise of home or small, small, medium, huge and multinational entities (Ashutosh, 2006). This is due to their ability to simplify and produce quality work in a speedy manner. The leaders in the industry and their competitive merit The key leaders in the industry include Oracle, SAP R/3, and Lawson; with much specialization on huge- multinational and large organizations, Great Plains, Macola, Traverse Open Systems and Sage software; who major on medium to large entities and small-medium businesses, and MYOB and DacEasy among others focus on small businesses and home/small office (Ashutosh, 2006). Today Sage Group is a worldwide concern and leader in the market in both North America and Europe (Isobel Robin, 2005). They add that the company`s competitive advantage lies in its wide product range, its reseller distribution channels, and the huge customer base. This is evidently what the above companies do, that is producing a wide array of accounting software products. Present gaps for the accounting software users and the necessary suggestions Several of the gaps include fraud loopholes, possible system let-down and sophisticated user skills and much more. There exists some avenues suitable to mitigate or even avert such and related challenges namely; establishing proper legislation and code of ethics to prevent frauds, properly training and inducting the software users to handle the complicated and ever-evolving software and having a standby system in case of failures just to mention a few. 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Victoria, E., 2016. `Cambridge International AS and A Level IT Coursebook with CD-ROM`.: Cambridge University Press. Virginia, D. (ed.), 2009. Handbook of Research on Multi-Agent Systems: Semantics and Dynamics of Organizational Models.: IGI Global