Discuss about the Accounting Software and Business Solutions.
The report is intended to provide an understanding of the various functions performed by a Baker. Thereby discussing the processes of the organization and understanding the business activities of the bakery. The first part of the report deals with development of the necessary functions or rather the indispensable functions, which are performed at the bakery, and discusses about the outcomes, which are required to achieve the necessary objectives of the business. The report further discusses about the possible software functionalities, which the company should consider in order to achieve the various types of accounting objectives and current issues. For the listing, accounting software package the websites of SAP, MYOB and Xero accounting software has been visited to make the final decision of the software, which is most applicable for B bakery. The later part of the report shows the comparison and the contrast of the various features and functionalities of two of the accounting software’s among the selected three packages. The primary objective show the comparison and select the most suitable accounting software package for B bakery and providing the rational for the same (Maggi 2014).
Job description of a Baker
Baker is an individual who is specialized in mixing and baking the ingredients as per the recipes prepared varieties of pastries, breads and baked items. These baked goods are further sold in the restaurants, wholesalers, grocers and to notional food centers. A Baker is responsible for checking the quality of ingredients, observing color and condition of products, which are being baked, setting of open temperature and placing of the Dough into pans, sheets or molds. A Baker is also responsible for combining of the different ingredients into mixtures or blenders and rolling or shaping of the dough. In the recent times due to changing consumer demands, a Baker is also responsible for adding the various types of toppings, icings and glazes in the baked products to make the products visually more appealing (Work.chron.com. 2016).
There are mainly two types of bakers observed namely commercial bakers and retail bakers. The commercial bakers are generally employed in the manufacturing facilities for the production of pastries and bread. In the aforementioned manufacturing facilities the bakers are responsible for using high-volume mixing machines and equipments to produce standardized baked goods. They are often observed to operate in large areas consisting of automated machines, conveyors, mixers and ovens. The commercial bakers are responsible to follow scheduled production procedure and may involve in developing of new recipes (Sevenstarsbakery.com. 2016).
The retail bakers on the other hand are considered those breakers who work in grocery stores or the charity stores, with a specialty in bakery. These bakers are generally known to produce smaller quantities of the baked goods as in contrast to the commercial bakers who work in large manufacturing facilities. The smaller quantities of the products are consumed by the people are placed for the sale in the spatiality shops. The small stores are known to take orders from the customers and follow a procedure of just in time inventory where the baked goods are prepared according to the order and then only sell to the customer. The various types of quantities prepared are often known to come in different varieties of sizes and flavors (Retail Bakers of America. 2016).
The business process of the B Bakery has to go through a series of process to reach to the consumers. The first process of the bakery includes sourcing of the raw material and paying of the ingredients. The weighed raw materials are then placed in the mixer for an automated process of mixing the dough. The dough is divided with the help of a divider and placed into the Rounder for giving it the proper shape. The products are placed into “check weigher” and then further placed into the molder for further processing (Cauvain 2015). The next step involves placing the baked product in a “prover” give the intended shape to the baked products and finally they are placed in oven for the baking process to take place. The next step involves the “depanning” of the baked materials and placing the baked products in cooler. The final step of the baking procedure involves packaging and placing the product in weigh machine to get the final estimate of the finished product (Mogol, B.A. and Gökmen 2014). The processes of the baking activities are shown below with the diagram as follows.
Figure 1: Business activities of baking
(Source: Wu et al. 2016)
Processes which are indispensable to perform
The B Bakery is found to be operating with 70 employees and having a revenue more than $ 13.5 over the years. Due to the immense experience of the company in bakery, it is essential for it to maintain a sound accounting system for ensuring stability in the performance of the business activities. In the given case although the form has acquired an accountant for maintaining the books and showcasing of financial results every year still the firm has identified the need for an accounting software. Some of the process which are indispensable in nature includes maintenance of top-quality ingredients, pre-fermented sourdough, ensuring maximum customer satisfaction and a proper accounting system for tracking of cash inflow and outflow of the bakery. The company needs to decide between keeping a manual accounting system in compared to a computerised accounting system (Dobija 2015).
The most essential concept of the bakery should deal with the fairness and accuracy in the journal entries of the accounting system. The journal entries are indispensable in nature as it is the very base of the accounting system. The company should further ensure that the journal entries are posted in the ledger account for recording and storing of income statement transaction and balance sheet items. Some of the examples of the general ledger account the inventory, investment, equipment and accounts receivable of the bakery. This is important because it shows the various accounts payable, accrued expenses and the deposits made by the customers. The general ledger is known for providing the summary of the records, which are used for purpose of controlling the accounts. The details are supported by the control accounts, which are further known as subsidiary ledger. This is particularly useful when the company is responsible for maintaining accounts receivable in the control account in the general ledger and the subsidiary ledger contains the customer credit activity (Å¢aicu 2012).
In order to understand the various types of outcomes required for achieving the present business objective a clear understanding of the present accounting procedure is essential. At present, the company is operating accounting system on manual basis. Stated the growth of the company in the recent years is essential to create a robust accounting system. The manual accounting system needs to be incorporated into computerized accounting software for achieving the present business objectives. This will ensure a real-time monitoring and ablation of the accounting entries as per the adjustment made in the day-to-day transactions of the bakery. The computerized accounting entry of the bakery will further ensure efficient operation of business as the time required will be comparatively less than the manual accounting entries. The accounting software will not only automate the process of posting the ledger entries but it will also help in making several types of financial analyses take a lot of time in manual processing. The financial analyses of the data will be based on different types of graphs and charts, which will show the analysis on the basis of the previous obtained data and the present improvements made by the use of new software. This will ensure the company is able to achieve the desired objective of the business. The computerized accounting software may involve some cost at the initial level but due to the potentiality of the business, it will be a lucrative decision for B Bakery to move forward with the decision of adopting the accounting system through computer software (Iacob, and Ţaicu 2012).
B Bakery can consider using accounting software, which will offer the complete solution for order management. The accounting software should offer the feature such as invoicing, costing, scheduling and pricing of the different types of the bakery items such as cakes, pastries, cookies, cupcakes, pies, bagels and many more such items. In order to be more efficient in the reporting standards the company needs to ensure using an accounting software which supports features such as cloud storage and real time updating of the all the data in the software in an automatic basis (Zubchyk 2014).
The process of the bakery has to go through number of stages so the accounting software should be customized in such a way which will offer traceability of the finished items of the bakery and able to track then raw materials and the required ingredients from the suppliers. The accounting software should further involve the process of the manufacturer charge backs. This feature will ensure the opportunity of giving promotions, discounts, administrative fees and advertising. The accounting software should further ensure recipe management, which should have an integrated food software and is known for providing the formula for the version control and including the processing instruction of the food items available at the bakery.
The implementation of the ERP systems should further include the support for “Multitenant Database Container Systems”. This system ensures the use of multiple isolated database and ensure the splitting of the tasks in a more efficient way. The accounting software should include the feature such as the cross database access of the different types of the database in the software. The software enhancement should further ensure features such as the backup of the database of the accounting data which will be useful for the purpose of ensuring a better adaptability to the changes which are required to be made in the in the existing entry of the accounting data (Rehkamp and Canning 2015).
The overall improvement should ensure a lower latency time in the implementation process of then different types of the accounting software changes and then should include features such as dynamic tiring which will ensure that the customer will be able to get a better flexibility of the product offered by the B bakery.
The implementation of the computer software system should ensure that the bakery is able to solve some of the key issues, which are being identified in the key areas of the bakery such as the management and maintenance of the accounting system on the basis of the few people to handle a large amount of the data. The accounting system should, be further integrated in such a way that the bakery is able to provide a real time update of the different line of products in of the bakery items which will ensure that the bakery is able to update the information of the deliveries which are being made in the supermarkets and pub-chains.
In order to achieve the IT objective then bakery should, consider the use of automated vendor sourcing and vendor selection from then ERP integration. The selection of the vendor will ensure the best orice offered in t he industry. The Bakery should moreover engage itself in preparation of an invoice based on a material management process through an ERP module. This will ensure up gradation of the existing facilities of the company with a minimum amount of labor required for controlling accounting system. The computerized accounting system of the Bakery should b e able to connect with various types of the department of the accounting system. This will ensure than the company is able to connect with the different types of the departments such as Marketing, production, material management and the procurement of the raw materials. This integration need to be further have an impact on the finance module of the ERP system. The overall objective e of then accounting system should ensure that all the different types of entries are able to auto update and make an impact in then plant level (Spatayeva Ismailova, and Nurgalieva 2015).
The accounting system of the bakery should be implemented across all the manufacturing hubs of the Bakery and ensure minimizing the work force cost in the accounting division. The lowering of the accounting cost in then account division will ensure that the bakery is able to focus in other type of the competitive areas of the business and then ensure that it is able to set a competitive price other products (Doménech-Asensi et al. 2016).
The selection of the software has been segregated in three divisions ranging from low end, medium end and high priced ERP system. For making, the selection three different ERP sites have been visited which along with the cost for the implementation for deciding which ERP is considered under the aforementioned categories. The selection is also done based on the most relevant accounting entries performed at B Bakery. The three accounting software’s shortlisted for the purpose of making the decision of selection of the most appropriate accounting software are Xero accounting software, MYOB accounting software and SAP (Myob.com. 2016). By visiting the websites of the aforementioned accounting software’s it can be stated that a SAP is considered as a high-end accounting software, MYOB as a midrange accounting software and Xero as the low-end accounting software (Efe 2016).
As the company operates with only 70 employees, the bakery should look forward in integration of accounting system with a midrange to low range computer software. Although the company has shown a lot of potential for improvement in the recent times the high-end accounting, software’s can prove to be an expensive decision especially with the small scale of operations given as per the case study. The company should also look forward to include all the latest features provided in the accounting software with the recent developments. B bakery should ensure that the selected accounting software has the port for mobile applications, invoicing and creating custom purchase orders. The custom purchase orders will ensure that the bakery is able to make changes in the ordering quantities or other ordering attributes, which will have an impact on the accounting at a later stage. B bakery should also ensure that the selected accounting software is able to integrate itself easily with customer relationship management. The implementation of customer relationship management with the ERP system will ensure that the company is able to increase its overall profitability by improving customer interactions with the present and potential customers. The CRM feature will ensure that the company is able to synchronize its sales and marketing data with the customer service (Kilic, Zaim and Delen 2014).
The overall process of the ERP implementation has been shown below with the diagram as follows :
Figure 2: ERP cycle with relevance to software selection
(Source: Huang and Yasuda 2014)
Comparison of the features of Xero and SAP
Xero and SAP are the two accounting softwares compared for knowing about the different functionalities and selecting the best software for Bbakery. The criteria selected for the comparison of the two accounting softwares are relevant to the given case. The rational for selecting Xero accounting software and SAP has been shown for the purpose of comparison of red midrange/low range accounting software (Xero) with high-end accounting software. The various types of functionalities include price paid for minimum package, support from her the latest android device, iPhones and iPads. The criteria also include support for human resource management. As discussed previously customer relationship management is an important criteria for software selection, hence this parameter has also been taken into account. As B bakery the manufacturing unit warehouse management is not required however this criteria has also been selected in case of additional storage capacity in the plant of the bakery.
The selection criteria has been also done on the basis of availability of e-commerce integration and cloud deployment of the various entries and accounting information sharing for the purpose of real-time sourcing of data. The criteria selection has also included industry-specific architecture of the enterprise resource which will ensure the flexibility of changing the main stresses of the business as per the requirement. The final selection criteria for companies and has been done on the basis of processing of the data which includes generation of invoice, creation of purchase order, order processing and tracking of final delivery of the goods. However, the main parameter for comparison and has been done based on minimum monthly charges of both the accounting package (Ansorena et al. 2013).
The company is in table of Xero accounting software and SAP are shown below as follows:
|
Parameters for comparison |
Xero accounting software |
SAP |
|
Price of minimum package per month |
$9 |
$448.28 |
|
Mobile support |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Human resources |
No |
Yes |
|
Customer relationship management |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Finance |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Business intelligence |
No |
Yes |
|
Warehouse management |
No |
Yes |
|
E-commerce |
No |
Yes |
|
Cloud deployment |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Industry-specific |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Procurement |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Processing |
Yes |
Yes |
The comparison of the accounting software clearly shows Xero is having a minimum monthly package charge of only $ 9 per user whereas SAP charges $ 448.28 for the initial integration of the software. This is a significant difference and the bakery should be wise in making the investment decision. Furthermore, the bakery should ensure it is able to keep its cost on accounting software as low as possible so that it is able to get an edge over the competitors in setting a lower price for the general bakery products. It can be further seen Xero accounting software offers all the same features, which is required for B bakery. Xero has immense support for the latest android devices and the most important criteria of customer relationship management, which will ensure management of the advertisement cost and continuous improvement in the profit through an augmented focus on customer service. The zero accounting software is also found to be very efficient in integrating the different types of purchase order entries with the accounting and real-time application of the stock value in the finance section support. The budget friendly accounting software is further observed to have support for cloud deployment, which will ensure even if there is a failure in the internal server, the data can be securely retrieved from the Internet via cloud storage facilities. The Xero accounting software is also observed was from all the processing requirements needed for the business (Räling et al.2015).
On a closer analysis it has to be considered that Xero accounting software does not up for warehouse management facilities which may be required for the excess storage of the partly perishable bakery items. A small amount of warehouse management would have ensured a more economical way of accounting the data. SAP also features human resource management and support for e-commerce, which could have provided an edge for the competitors (SAP 2016).
The software selected for the purpose of an efficient vendor management is Xero accounting software. As per the requirement analysis of B bakery the best fit of accounting software has been identified as the Xero accounting software. This is because B bakery operates with only 70 employees and for such a small bakery unit Xero accounting software will be sufficient to fulfill all the accounting requirements. The accounting software is not only cheap in installation (with only $ 9 monthly expenditure for the starter services) but it has ever features, which are relevant for application in B bakery (Xero Accounting Software. 2016). Some of the key features included in the software applicable for B bakery include:
The rational for selecting Xero will ensure that the bakery is able to tackle all the present accounting problems and also reduce the cost of human resource for accounting personnel. The cheaper implementation cost of this accounting software will not only ensure that the company is able to get a competitive edge over the competitors but it also improved the profitability of the overall business of the bakery. Furthermore, the implementation of the software will ensure that the company is able to keep itself up to date with all the latest accounting features such as cloud support and online inventory tracking. This will ensure a real-time stock update while preparing the trial balance of the company. The maintenance of this accounting software will also ensure the integration of different types of third-party applications for an easy payment option to the suppliers of the raw materials and bakery ingredients. Just to be also noted that the support for the aforementioned third-party software are very affordable and most suitable for a bakery like this. The selected accounting software will ensure the integration of or functional areas of the business among each other and result in a more robust operation of the company. The integration of the core functional areas will ensure that it is able to make the changes effective in several departments. For example if a entry has been made in creation of purchase order, this will have a direct impact on the accounting journals history. This will enable the provision for more number of orders in the stock of the company (Xero. 2016).
Conclusion
The overall analysis of the report provides a brief description about the jobs and responsibilities of a baker and the different types of business processes and activities, which is performed by it. The systematic process of the bakery industry is most relevant to the present standards of the bakery business. The outcome analysis has been shown by knowing about the present issues faced by the company in manual accounting of the entries. The prime part of the report suggests the use of Xero accounting software as it is most applicable for the needs of bakery as mentioned in the case study. The rational for this has been provided with a clear comparison with SAP and MYOB accounting software package. The main reason has been also shown for the fact that B bakery is a small/midsized bakery unit, which should consider investing in a midrange accounting software for troubleshooting the present issues and be more competitive with the bakery products in the market.
Reference List
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