Automated Accounting Services In Australia – Benefits, Market Size And Leading Service Providers

Organizational Background

An organization made up of several parts and systems. Organizations need to have interlinked units, integration is very essential for organizations. Certain departments of the organizations are essential and certain are not. One of the departments that are considered important in an organizations is the Accounts department, the accounting activities, processes, transaction records, all the processes were manually handled. Since the introduction of technology, evolution has taken place in the accounts department as well. There are automated software packages that are available offering accounting services.  In Australia the market is full with many service providers who offer  automated accounting software services for fulfilling the demands of the customers and reducing their effort towards manual processing.

According to Bolton 2013, there is a subsequent rise in online retailing in the present scenario, there are many organizations in Australia and globally who provide services in this area. Woolworths Limited an example of one such organization, it is a retail store that offers its customers variety of products like groceries, FMCG and many more.

In Woolworths, the organizational structure is divided into different levels, comprised of top management, middle management, leadership levels and  functional employees. Resources are being allocated in the various levels of the organization. Combination of the resources allocated at various levels is required for Woolworths for meeting its goals and objectives and hence achieving success (Arli et al. 2013). 

As per the organizational structure of Woolworths, it is seen that various resources in Woolworths are allocated at different levels. For Woolworths to meet its objective it is very important that all the resources combine together and operate as a single unit, but such cooperation and integration cannot be seen now in Woolworths, this results in many problems arising in the operations and management of the organization.

 In Woolworths many System Acquisition methods can be implemented. The organization can avail customized software services and commercial softwares as well. The most suitable method that can be used among all those present will be utilization of Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP (Dunbar, Laing and Wynder 2016). Enterprise resource planning will help the organization to resolve the issues that are related with the current organizational structure of Woolworths.

There are four stages in which the sales operations of Woolworths are carried out, the following flowchart shows the system flow chart.

 

In the flowchart the business objectives are the input, that results in customer satisfaction, many other activities also take place in between the input and output processes of the flow chart.

According to Cates 2016, it is seen in the flowchart, that there are four stages in the sales procedure which includes many activities and sub-activities that take place in each stage. This becomes the reason for the many problems arising that are related to controlling and monitoring of the entire procedure. There is lack of feasibility in the manual tracking and management of these activities, the reason is the vastness of the operations and hence the automated systems is very important for controlling and monitoring of the sales process. Due to the various activities involved than are many cases of frauds and malpractices that are found as far as information handling and exchange is concerned.

Problems faced due to the organizational structure

According to Khaneja 2015 accounts department is one of the most important departments as it keeps records of all the financial transactions, profit & loss, income & expenses and many more.  Before the widespread of technology, all the accounting activities, processes was paper based, records were maintained in files, but introduction of technology to this department, there are complete change in the pattern of accounting operations, now there are many softwares available that can reduce the manual effort and hence saves a lot of time. There are service providers that offer automated and integrated accounting services softwares, these services are according to the industrial demand and the requirements of the accounting department.

A change in the the customer satisfaction levels has been observed. Previously there were very less complaints from the end of customers about the long queues and long waiting hours, but now there are complaints from customers about the long queues and long waiting hours, it is just not acceptable on the end of customers these days. If there is any system downtime the customer engagement decreases resulting in lower satisfaction levels among customers. Likewise the level of satisfaction also has also changed with the performance of the system and the extent of its usability .

According to Rahman et al. 2015, There are more than 11,000 companies that provide accounting services and other operations that are related to account departments, through their softwares and  more these companies employ more than 135,000 employees. According to Bankwest 2015, a growth of 6 % can be anticipated in regard to the income generated and profits earned.

Reckon

Accounting Industry has a large market share and market size. The market is full service providers that offer automated accounting services that are based on the industrial demand and the requirements of the accounting departments that might differ from organization to organization. These service providers offer customized automated accounting software package. Reckon is one of the market leaders in this field. The features of services provided by Reckon are given below.

• It has a good reputation in the market and good review from the end of customers.
• There are no risks to the investments, it will be safe
• Allows easy integration with the other subsystems
• For faster processing the software uses latest technology at the back-end(Hoyle, Schaefer and Doupnik 2015).

According to Curtis 2013, there are many other companies present in the market  in regard to this industry. Another market leader in this field is MYOB. It has also emerged as one of the top service providers that offer accounting services as per the requirements and demands of the users. The distinct features of MYOB are mentioned below.

• Through the help of this software package one can see real time pictures.
• Point of sales transaction can be done in a very simplified manner
• Network issues does not hinder the performance of the software
• It strictly follows the set standards and the compliance policies
• It offers excellent scalability and supportability (MYOB 2016)

Accounting industry captures a large market share that has been mentioned earlier, the market has many such companies that offer customized accounting services to its customers, Xero cannot be left when one is discussing about the accounting service software packages. The features of Xero are:

• The back end processing of this software is very fast therefore there is short response time
• Easy execution of restoration of tasks and the processes
• The usability and the user experience of this software is very good
• The software easily integrates with the rest of the systems (Drury and Vickers2015)

According to Gögüs and Özer 2014 SAASU is one of the market leaders of the that provide accounting services to the customers based on their demands and requirements. By utilizing this software package one can access all their business financial data from anywhere and by using any device, as long as one is connected to the internet. The servers of SAASU are monitored and maintained which offers a high level of security than many other small business networks. Features of SAASU are discussed below:

• The software can easily collaborate with the rest of the systems
• The customer base of this software is very strong
• The system provides excellent, scalability, supportability and adaptability.
• The system has many currency language options (Svobodova and Cerna 2016)

As mentioned by Kelly 2015, QuickBooks also captures a subsequent amount of market share, it was developed by Intuit mainly for small and medium sized businesses. The software package offers accounting applications like, business payments, management and payment of bills and payroll functions.  It offers cloud services known as QuickBooks online, It has many web based functionalities into the QuickBooks, which includes access capabilities, remote payroll assistance, online banking and restoration, it also includes mapping features with the help of google maps. Following are the features that one can expect from the services of Intuit QuickBooks:

• A very low rate is charged from the customers
• Till now there has been no complaints regarding the performance of the software
• All the operations related to the data and its management is very impressive
• The payroll services are offered free of cost
• Till now there is no such security breach issues (Horne 2013)

Cost of accounting software packages

Type of Cost for the accounting Software Package	Reckon	MYOB	Xero	Saasu	Intuit QuickBooks
Basic Package	The charge for basic package is $5 for a period that is valid for one month.	The charge for basic package $50 for a period that is valid for one month.	The cost of basic package is $ 9 for a period that is valid for one month.	For basic package the providers charge $15 with one month validity	The service providers charge $ 12 and the validity is one month
Advanced Package	It depends on the extra services availed	The cost for availing advanced package is $99 for a period that is valid for one month.	For $70 one can avail the advanced services for a period that is valid for one month.	The cost for the advanced services is $180 for a period that is valid for one month.	$21 is charged for availing the advanced services and the validity period is one month.

• Too many security issues have come to light that negatively impact the  security of the information of the users and also the system.
• In certain cases the complete information about full cost is not given to the customers but later customers are made a higher price that was not discussed before.
• Customers are provided with system documentation and user manual, which makes it difficult on the part of customers to get aware about the steps that needs to be followed while executing any operation.
• After deployment and delivery, services are not good (Bourne, Szabo and Sheng 2017).

• The service providers needs to focus more on the security features of the softwares so that the security of the customers’ information is ensured.
• The service providers should clearly mention the exact cost that needs to be charged from the customers, miscommunication regarding the prices might end up decreasing the customer satisfaction level.
• The accounting softwares should have user manual so that the users know how to operate any particular task on the system
• After deployment and delivery services needs to be improved, taking customers feedback is very important (Sasu and Ichim 2016).

References

Arli, V., Dylke, S., Burgess, R., Campus, R. and Soldo, E., 2013. Woolworths Australia and Walmart US: Best practices in supply chain collaboration. Journal of Economics, Business & Accountancy Ventura, 16(1).

Bolton, S., 2015. Woolworths workers back at work. Green Left Weekly, (1065), p.3.

Bourne, S., Szabo, C. and Sheng, Q., 2017. Transactional Behavior Verification in Business Process as a Service Configuration. IEEE Transactions on Services Computing.

Cates, S.V., 2015. Administration and Payroll: The Creation of a Professional Payroll Using Software.

Curtis, V., 2015. MYOB Software for Dummies-Australia. John Wiley & Sons.

Drury, R.K. and Vickers, M.J., Xero Limited, 2015. Systems and methods of access control and system integration. U.S. Patent 9,117,208.

Dunbar, K., Laing, G. and Wynder, M., 2016. A Content Analysis of Accounting Job Advertisements: Skill Requirements for Graduates. The E-Journal of Business Education & Scholarship of Teaching, 10(1), p.58.

Gögüs, C.G. and Özer, G., 2014. The Roles of Technology Acceptance Model Antecedents and Switching Cost on Accounting Software Use. Journal of Management Information and Decision Sciences, 17(1), p.1.

Horne, J., 2013. QuickBooks Pro 2013: A Complete Course. Prentice Hall Press.

Hoyle, J.B., Schaefer, T. and Doupnik, T., 2015. Advanced accounting. McGraw Hill.

Kelly, M., 2017. Intuit Quickbooks GoPayment Reviews: App vs Square.

Khaneja, S., 2015. E-Accounting in the Current Scenario: Impact of Information Technology. The International Journal of Business & Management, 3(9), p.290.

Khaneja, S., 2015. E-Accounting in the Current Scenario: Impact of Information Technology. The International Journal of Business & Management, 3(9), p.290.

Rahman, M.M., Ahammed, M., Uddin, M., Rouf, M. and Uddin, M.M., 2015. Obstacles and Implementation of Accounting Software System in Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs): Case of South Asian Perspective.

Sasu, C. and Ichim, D., 2016. Qualitative Analysis of the Digital Marketing Influence on the Behaviour of the Organizational Consumer. Management (18544223), 11(2).

Svobodova, L. and Cerna, M., 2016. Accounting, Economic and ERP Systems on the Czech Scene. Advanced Science Letters, 22(5-6), pp.1170-1174.