Discuss About The Metamorphosis Of The Traditional Accountant?
An organisation mainly operates with the profit motive and it makes all the possible strategies which would help the organisation to maintain a competitive hold over the market. It is important to note that most of the organisations in the contemporary business environment have different divisions who make strategic decisions that help the organisation to operate effectively. In a comparatively bigger organisation it becomes complicated to manage all the decisions due to the differences among the various divisions of the organisation. Organisational excellence is the result of all the different divisions working together and hence it is important for the different divisions to communicate with each other in order to get effective insights to strategise the business operations. For instance it is important for an organisation to have the supply chain management communicating with the production division which would help to get the right kind of material and also for effective inventory management. Similarly one case each department is connected with the other and this is what leads a company to success. Most regularly organisations face operational inefficiencies or errors due to the organisational structure. The present study will discuss the possible operational inefficiencies that could creep up due to the organisational structure and how it could be eliminated with the help of IT system acquisition (Jones and George, 2015). The latter half of the paper will discuss the development and adoption of accounting software, its market size and the possible challenges encountered by the users using them and the key reasons for these organisations to gain competitive advantage. Style runner is one of the leading fashion startups operating in Australia and it has been used for the completion of this study.
Stylerunner is one of the emerging fashion organisations selling activewear that has caught the attention of the entire country talking about this wonderful success within a short period of time. The organisation sells the cloths online and has been able to develop a satisfied client base all across the country and also exports its products across different foreign locations. This clearly shows that the organisation has been able to achieve success within a short time but an organisation has to manage its internal and external environment in order to continue to sustain in the business map and for that it is important to have a stable organisational structure (Bolman and Deal, 2017). Hence it is important to discuss about the organisational structure of the organisation Stylerunner.
The present organisational structure of Stylerunner is mainly functional where each and every department is focused on each other’s functions. In the contemporary market the companies have to adapt to new challenges and alterations and most of the organisations have complex organisational structure that leads to operational errors and clearly decreases the possibilities of gaining competitive advantage in the market (Ashkenas et al., 2015). In a functional organisational structure the organisation has to manage the internal and external stakeholders which becomes extremely challenging due to barriers set for the employees to get into the organisational decision making and this leaves them with absolutely no idea whatsoever about what decisions are being taken. In Stylerunner the functional organisational structure is being followed and the organisation has separate functional departments that work together for the overall management of operations. In this sort of organisational structure there is a president or CEO at the top which in this case are the two sisters Sali and Julie Stevenja and under them there are different functional departments like R&D, finance, production, distribution, marketing et cetera. Hence whatever decision is made in these departments will have to come to the sisters for their approval and then the decision is made (Jones and George, 2015).
The main operational error which is likely to take place in a functional organisational structure for this organisation is the problem in supply chain management. The organisation has wide range of activewear and hence it has to manage numerous suppliers and have to communicate with them properly. If the supply chain management is not properly managed the entire organisation will come down on its knees due to the improper distribution of products poor inventory management and improper information integration and communication for the different departments to make their decisions effectively (Myerson, 2012). Hence supply chain management issue is one of the major issues that the organisation Stylerunner could face in this scenario. Apart from that information distribution and communication stands to be another problem that could lead to operational inefficiencies within the organisation and so it is important that the organisation is able to make sure a proper system is implemented in order to manage the organisational operations effectively and reduce miscommunication and confusion (Bolman and Deal, 2017).
From the above discussion it is clear that Stylerunner as an organisation could face mainly supply chain issues which would definitely lead to production and distribution problems and communicative problems due to the distances between the departments in a functional organisational structure. Hence the company should focus on getting a IT system set up in a way which would help the organisation to eliminate all its problems, It will manage the supply chain effectively, provide suitable information to the key stakeholders of the organisation and also help to integrate information in the system which would be effective for the different organisational levels to utilise for the organisational operations (Powell, Riezebos and Strandhagen, 2013). In this case the Enterprise Resource Planning System is the perfect system that could be integrated in the system of the organisation (Stadtler, 2015). The ERP is an excellent option to manage the supply chain of the organisation Stylerunner. The ERP has various functional modules which would help the organisation to meet all its information needs and communication needs as well as manage the supply chain effectively (Saleh Shata and Mohamed Udin, 2012). The Supply chain management involves the aspects of planning, execution, control and monitoring the supply activities and helps in integrated value creation procedure. The material flow, information flow and the financial flow are effectively managed by ERP for the organisation Stylerunner and hence it becomes an extremely effective tool which would provide the best possible result after the implementation. There are certainly some key advantages which would help the organisation Stylerunner with the integration of ERP in the system which are: improved efficiency of the operations as it helps to discuss the key aspects of the business and all the important functional departments have suitable information, helps in decision making, minimises communication gap, helps to improve the management of inventory, eliminate any kind of errors involved with supply chain and finally helps to reduce cost through perfect management of financial information and helps to utilise resources in the best possible manner (Wisner, Tang and Leong, 2014).
The sales flowchart of the Stylerunner should be developed in the form of a typical Electronic commerce business. The sales flowchart starts with the customer placing order in the online portal of the organisation. The customer places the order makes credit transactions or debit transaction or chooses to pay during the home delivery. The order is placed and the organisation informs the warehouse where it is picked up by the distribution vehicle and then reaches the customer after which the customer feedback is taken to improve the sales procedure and the overall customer service. Below the possible sales flowchart of the organisation Stylerunner is given (Chang et al., 2014).
Fig 1: Sales Flowchart Stylerunner
There could be significant fraudulent activities involved in the ERP system which could impact the business significantly. The ERP system has significant security fears in the form of dummy supplier fraud. This is one aspect which cannot be denied by the ERP developers and hence it is important to implement significant control system for the ERP. The hack attacks are possible in ERP and hence proper online surveillance is important for the ERP system. The control system should be properly managed in the sense that the IT managers will have to understand how to manage this daunting task of safeguarding the ERP system implemented. First of all application security is the first issue to be managed and hence it should be simplified with the help of implementation to tools and security mainly authentication and access steps are important to be developed. A specific standard should be maintained which would help to manage the system properly. An audit system should be placed to manage the ERP security risks. There are different tools which could manage these issues effectively (Myerson, 2012).
From accounting researches it has been found that most of the organisations irrespective of the size use accounting software packages. The use of accounting software in Australia is common in the corporate world. The use of accounting software may have become common and compulsory for effective operations of the organisation but its use has been there in the business since its inception in the late 70s. The bigger organisations like IBM, Microsoft embraced accounting software in the early 80s which clearly shows the importance of accounting software packages in the world (Romney et al., 2013). It is important to note that the concept of accounting is quite old and has been in use since the inception of the concept of business. In the contemporary business market in Australia almost 85% of the organisations have taken up accounting software due to the excessive increase of competition in the business. . Survey also shows that 99% of the small and medium scale businesses in Australia are using accounting software packages which are mostly third party accounting and payroll accounting packages. Hence it could be said that the current market size of the accounting software selling organisation is almost 85% if properly assessed (Ng, Harrison and Akroyd, 2013).
The most popular accounting software packages in Australia are MYOB (Mind Your Own Business), The Quickbook is the next big thing in the accounting market, Reckon, Xero, Money Works Express et cetera. These organisations capture 78% of the Australian business market together and hence are considered leading accounting software package selling organisations. One of the biggest reasons that the organisations have embraced software for accounting is that it eases a huge amount of pressure from the accountants and has also improved their features effectively to gain competitive advantage in the market. It is also important to mention that the market demand of the accounting software have been a prime reason for the increasing sales of these organisations (Horngren, et al., 2012).
Companies like Quick Books, MYOB and Xero have gained competitive advantage as they have thought out of the box and have made the software completely cloud based which makes it easier for the organisation to do calculations from different places. Software like Xero, MYOB and Zoho Books are mainly based on price. MYOB and Zoho gain competitive advantage as they have phone support which is missing in companies Xero. Comparing the prices of Zoho Books and Xero it could be said that they gain upper hand as they are comparatively cheaper to MYOB which makes them highly saleable to the consumers (Trigo, Belfo and Estébanez, 2014).
The importance of accounting software have increased over the years which clearly shows that this is considered as a tool of competition for many business as using accounting software eases the work to a large extent. It is also important to be mentioned that even though accounting software might be effective for businesses they also pose certain challenges for the organisations. The very first challenge that they pose to the business is security threat. It is important to note that most of the cloud based services have security threats and it cannot be denied. The financial information is one of the most highly classified information of an organisation and hence security threats will stand to be a huge aspect that needs to be managed (Van Akkeren, Buckby, and MacKenzie, 2013). On the other hand most of the cloud based software tends to work slow as they are heavy and not glitch free and hence this needs to be properly worked out. It could be recommended that customer service tool has to be improved to provide the best possible service to the clients. Authentication and access patterns have to be changed constantly and identity authentication should be implemented in order to strengthen the safety of the software. Access controls and database management should be handled singlehandedly (Romney et al., 2013).
Conclusion
To conclude it could be said that accounting is extremely important for an organisation and hence it is important to make the right decision to choose accounting software packages. The accounting software market in Australia is highly competitive. There are certain advantages of using accounting software and also challenges and hence there has to be security protocols in order to safeguard the software effectively. Overall to conclude it could be said that accounting system has to be implemented very prudently in an organisation like Stylerunner so that it gets the best possible result out of it.
References
Ashkenas, R., Ulrich, D., Jick, T. and Kerr, S., 2015. The boundaryless organization: Breaking the chains of organizational structure. John Wiley & Sons.
Bolman, L.G. and Deal, T.E., 2017. Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership. John Wiley & Sons.
Chang, S.I., Yen, D.C., Chang, I.C. and Jan, D., 2014. Internal control framework for a compliant ERP system. Information & Management, 51(2), pp.187-205.
Horngren, C., Harrison, W., Oliver, S., Best, P., Fraser, D. and Tan, R., 2012. Financial accounting. Pearson Higher Education AU.
Jones, G. and George, J., 2015. Contemporary management. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Maas, J.B., Fenema, P.C. and Soeters, J., 2014. ERP system usage: the role of control and empowerment. New Technology, Work and Employment, 29(1), pp.88-103.
Myerson, P., 2012. Lean supply chain and logistics management. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Ng, F., A. Harrison, J. and Akroyd, C., 2013. A revenue management perspective of management accounting practice in small businesses. Meditari Accountancy Research, 21(2), pp.92-116.
Powell, D., Riezebos, J. and Strandhagen, J.O., 2013. Lean production and ERP systems in small-and medium-sized enterprises: ERP support for pull production. International Journal of Production Research, 51(2), pp.395-409.
Romney, M.B., Steinbart, P.J., Mula, J.M., McNamara, R. and Tonkin, T., 2013. Accounting Information Systems [1st Australasian edition]. Pearson Australia.
Saleh Shatat, A. and Mohamed Udin, Z., 2012. The relationship between ERP system and supply chain management performance in Malaysian manufacturing companies. Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 25(6), pp.576-604.
Stadtler, H., 2015. Supply chain management: An overview. In Supply chain management and advanced planning (pp. 3-28). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Teittinen, H., Pellinen, J. and Järvenpää, M., 2013. ERP in action—Challenges and benefits for management control in SME context. International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, 14(4), pp.278-296.
Trigo, A., Belfo, F. and Estébanez, R.P., 2014. Accounting information systems: The challenge of the real-time reporting. Procedia Technology, 16, pp.118-127.
Van Akkeren, J., Buckby, S. and MacKenzie, K., 2013. A metamorphosis of the traditional accountant: An insight into forensic accounting services in Australia. Pacific Accounting Review, 25(2), pp.188-216.
Wisner, J.D., Tan, K.C. and Leong, G.K., 2014. Principles of supply chain management: A balanced approach. Cengage Learning.
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