HI5019 Strategic Information System Proof Reading Service

HI5019 Strategic Information System Proof Reading Service

Introduction

Accounting software is basic for any organisation standings. With the growth and development of any company there exists a need to develop and maintain records of accounting and financial information of the business. These not only helps to measure performance of business but also making analysis of variance, regression and other complex financial and statistical operations. There are various accounting and financial packages available in the market. The user of the software can select any of the available software or create tailor made customised software according to their relevant needs and demands. Most pre-packaged software’s contains the general charters tics of accounting to fulfil the basic common needs (Suarez, et.al, 2013). These are generally related to various accounting and finance field such as debtors and creditors management, Journal accounting, creations of various ledgers, generating invoice and payment systems, managing stock levels and other inventory, managing purchase & sales orders, creating financial reports and summarised statements for presenting to the top management. Apart from the basic accounting functions some top accounting software’s provides the enhanced feature of critical analysis and further provide a benefit of flexibility in customising the accounting software to certain extent. In this project, analyst has given a brief discussion about history of accounting software’s utilised in Australia among various types of business organisation categorised on basis of small medium and large enterprises. Over the period of time these software’s are developed and evolved according to external environment business needs and requirements. Further discussion of current market leader of both pre-packaged and customised accounting software’s will be discussed and analysed in this project. Accordingly their key market competencies will be also reviewed which helps them to be at the top of the chart.

History of accounting software’s 1000

Since ancient time all the business organisation used some techniques and to tools to manage its book keeping and accounting operations. Primarily they were based on manual accounting methods to measure and record various business transactions. Due to human evolution over the period of time new progressive methods were developed to perform the same activity. History of financial accounting recording begins around thousands of years ago and transformed to utilisation of modern accounting software’s. Modernisation of accounting begins with the development of abacus. Since then modern computing methods were developed which helped not only in documentation of business transactions but also helped in critical and scientifically evaluation (Kabir, et.al 2015).  When business has reformed its shape to multi user and multi tasking businesses then it needs to a proper accounting and management systems to operate the financial database of organisation. Over the period of time great reform has been witnessed and faith on computer accounting has been developed. In the early 1980’s software developed named as Intuit played a major role in acting as a primary accounting software and converting many of the accounting and financial users towards digital way of doing it. After that a wide range of customised and pre-packaged software’s was developed.

Development and Adoption of various accounting software’s

There is various accounting software available to users in the market. They contain some differential and common features as per its general user’s requirement. To develop and create adoptability of the financial software’s company developing it must accumulate facts that contains all the relevant requirements that should be implemented in the finished software (Pulakanam & Suraweera 2010). First of all problems or general needs of the market or particular users need to be identified, accordingly various feasibility and technical study is to be made on the above requirement.

Current Market Size

As per the IBIS world software’s publishing the Australia software’s Companies revenues has increased recent years.  Quick Book accounting software has a market size of around 80% in small scale business using financial management software. This size is approx 29 million businesses in US. This Company is enjoying 80% market share among the small business in US. Xero is gaining gradually the market share in Australia. MYOB is also gaining gradually a market size in the accounting software’s used by the small business. 

Current market leaders in terms of accounting software in Australia

Top Accounting Software Report (2017),Current market accounting software’s in market place of Australia are Unit 4, pronoto, Syspro , infor, Qucik books, etc. Quick Books online accounting software is current market leader which are available for small size business and also for medium size business. Xero is an accounting software leader which helps in tracing the fixed assets and depreciation schedules. There are other top software’s which are available like MYOB and Reckon One with many benefits in tracing activity based costing and actual costing. This software’s also helping the Company in producing standards for the various business practices.

Competitive advantage available to Leaders of software

Quick Books online software is one of the best software’s available to small and medium business in Australia. This software is ideal for those Companies who aim at providing access to the more than one employee at one time. This software is designed for accountants and bookkeepers. This software automatically identifies and tracks the kilometres transactions and automatically segregates under business and personal expenses (Pulakanam & Suraweera 2010). Quick Books online software has the features which is the demand for the today’s business environment. No other software is providing such advancement in the accounting of business. This software also provides additional features of freelancing, online merchants, consultants etc.

As per Top Accounting Software Report, (2017) Pronoto is accounting software which is specifically designed for small, medium and large Companies to manage their fixed assets properly. This software possesses the advancement feature of fixed asset management.  Unit 4 is ideal for those industries which are providing services, transportation, logistics, and retail. Infor has advanced feature of providing business and financial performance management applications with support tools that enable the software user to analyze the business more effectively. It also helps the business to centralize the data, building plans and forecasting easily.

Current gaps or challenges faced by users of accounting software’s

Users of accounting software still face some of the challenges. There are few shortcomings in the available software’s which reduces the performance of the software’s. Security issue is most common issue in using the online accounting software’s. Companies in using accounting software’s are worried about the data which are easily accessible by the foreign parties. Some accounting solutions are found to be helpless to the users of the software to get out the business data. Accounting software’s lack efficiency as consume lot of time and efforts and lack in capabilities (Fuggetta, and Di Nitto 2014) Accounting software’s are also found not to be user friendly and fails to enable the customised function. Lack of understanding is also one of the current issues in the use of accounting software. In the today’s business world business demand the digital way for performing bank and credit card accounts reconciliation function but some of the software’s lack the same. Some of the software’s lack in providing training and learning of the use of software’s which lead the Companies to assess the expert in teaching the usage of software. Up gradation in the use of software’s also create a difficulty for the software user. Some software’s frequently demand for their gradation.

Relevant suggestion and recommendation:-

Accounting software’s should have a features and functions which should support the function of accounting perfectly. Below are the suggestions which are provided to accounting making software Companies to make their software’s effective and efficient.

1. Accounting software’s should be capable of providing informed decisions to the accounting users which can help them to arrive at better solution. Accounting software’s should have an ease way of depicting the accounting information which can be easily understood by the other users like mangers, directors of the business.

2. Accounting software should be designed in such way to enable the Companies to install it easily.

3. Accounting software should be designed involving low cost to enable the small and medium business to purchase the software as per their business requirements. Company should make efforts to keep the cost of software’s at the reasonable prices.

4. Accounting software should have additional features which can supports the way in using the software’s. This feature will save the cost of the Companies to take support of the expert in understanding the software.

5. Accounting software’s should support the additional feature of providing consultancy to meet the accounting needs of the business.

6. Accounting software should have easy mobile access and also should have the advance features of credit card processing, tax preparation and payroll services.

7. An integration should be easily available with third party using accounting software’s

8. Accounting software’s Companies should majorly focus on improving the Reporting capabilities and time saving features to make the software attractive for the business.

Conclusion

The report has provided a literature review on the accounting software’s /packages used in the Australia. The report has started with the history of the accounting software in the Australia and vast improvement in the features of the accounting software’s took place. Report subsequently discussed the development in the accounting software’s. Report also provided the leaders available in the market of Australia and their special features which are helping them to achieve competitive advantage on the other Companies. The report also discussed the current gap and challenges which are faced by the user of the accounting software with recommendations.

References:-

Fuggetta, A. and Di Nitto, E., (2014), May. Software process. In Proceedings of the on Future of Software Engineering (pp. 1-12). ACM.

Kabir M., Rahman M., Yunus M., & Chowdhury A, (2015)“Applications of Accounting Software: An Empirical Study on the Private Universities of Bangladesh” World Review of Business Research, Vol. 5. No. 1. Issue.

Pulakanam V. & Suraweera T., (2010)“IMPLEMENTING ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE IN SMALL BUSINESSES IN NEW ZEALAND: AN EXPLORATORY INVESTIGATION” Accountancy Business and the Public Interest, Vol. 9, 2010

Suarez, F.F., Cusumano, M.A. and Kahl, S.J., (2013) Services and the business models of product firms: an empirical analysis of the software industry. Management Science, 59(2), pp.420-435.

Top Accounting Software Report, “Overview of Accounting Software Solutions” Business Software.com, 2017 edition