ACCT6014 Contemporary Technologies in Accounting, Sem 1_2023
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ACCT6014 Contemporary Technologies in Accounting, Sem 1_2023
A Bank of Extended Response Questions for Final Examination
1. Explain the typical accounting system mostly used by business organisations today and explain why packaged integrated systems are more common these days?
2. Compare and contrast two accounting software solutions typically suitable to a small and medium sized enterprises (for eg. XERO and MYOB) clearly explaining similarities and differences between them.
3. What are information silos in business organizations? How do they form? What are the problems of information silos? How can firms solve information silos problems?
4. Explain the key components of any Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system with examples (in the context of SAP system you are now familiar with) and discuss the potential impact of integrated systems (ERP systems) on accounting processes in business organizations.
5. Explain the choices firms have while adopting ERP systems? What are the associated risks and benefits in each of those choices?
6. For one of the small businesses listed below design a ‘Chart of Accounts’ using a hierarchical coding method. Identify and list at least TWO accounts with appropriate codes for each of the categories of accounts: a) a partnership beauty salon by Lin and John, ii) An independent pharmacy, iii) a retail clothing stores in a chain of retail stores owned by a franchisee, iv) single owner medical practice.
7. Discuss the key advantages/benefits of implementing ERP systems and their limitations/challenges? What types of firms typically use ERPs?
8. Explain the concept of Enterprise Structure in SAP and the factors influencing the design of SAP Enterprise structure with examples? For a large retail chain such as Coles, Bunnings, Aldi or Woolworths, design an SAP enterprise structure clearly identifying and listing mandatory organizational elements, optional organizational elements, key master data and document for each of the SAP modules these firms may implement – i.e. Financial Accounting, Controlling, Sales & Distribution, Materials Management (including purchasing and inventory) and Production.
9. Customers of Zee HealthCare place online orders for its skincare products. Zee processes the customer order by first verifying the customer identity, checking the availability of stocks and sending a request to the Credit card company to verify the customer's credit worthiness. It then authorizes shipment and sends authorization to warehouse. The warehouse picks the items from the stock and ships the items to customer with a pick list enclosed. The warehouse notifies accounting that the items have been shipped. Accounting then generates an invoice from the sales information and emails the invoice to the customer. For this process, create a business process map organizer clearly identifying the tasks (using verb‐ noun sequence), decision points (with yes or no decision and the options thereafter), the entity (person or depart) responsible for the task and suggest ways of improving the process (or its tasks) using information systems and/or business process management.
10. Lee Corporation, a local company in Australia designs, manufactures, stores, and distributes high‐ tech medical equipment. It employs 1500 full‐time staff across its three locations – Melbourne and Sydney manufacturing plants, warehouses in NSW, Queensland and Victoria, and corporate office in Sydney CBD, and service organizations in Melbourne and Sydney. Its business is expanding and now wants to start selling its products online for international markets. It is setting up sales offices in Delhi and London and purchasing office in Zurich (for spare parts and key components). Its annual turnover is around $200 million, and its accounting system runs on MYOB and excel spreadsheets. This firm is now considering improving accounting accuracy, real‐time reports, and automated sales, purchases, and inventory management by implementing SAP. They would like to implement Financial Accounting, Controlling, Sales & Distribution, Production and Materials Management modules. Based on the scenario explained above, suggest a model SAP Enterprise structure by clearly identifying and listing mandatory organisational elements, optional organisational elements, master data and document for each of the modules. Make sure no element appears twice.
11. For an SME (small and medium sized enterprise) where data security is vital, what considerations would you keep in mind while adopting an accounting system?
12. A large pharmacy chain (such as Chemist warehouse or Terrywhite Chemart) with stores in Australia and New Zealand, has decided to develop a dashboard using balanced score card. As a manager of one retail store, you are asked to develop a balanced score card‐ based reporting system for your store. a) Propose two performance objectives for each of the balanced score card perspectives for this pharmacy chain and suggest a corresponding measure for each objective and explain how information for each measure could be collected.
13. Given that most accounting processes are repetitive, time‐consuming and require high precision, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technology is considered useful to reduce costs and increase accuracy in performance. List and explain various accounting processes that can be automated with RPA technology.
14. Espresso Coffee customers place an online order. Espresso Coffee processes the customer order by verifying the customer identity, verifying the items are available, and sending a request to the credit card company to verify the customer’s good credit standing. The shipment authorization is sent to the warehouse. The warehouse picks the items from stock. The items are shipped to the customer with a pick list enclosed. The warehouse notifies accounting that the items have shipped. Accounting generates an invoice from the sales information and emails the invoice to the customer. The corresponding database tables are updated. You are required to i) Create business process map organizer clearly showing the activities, gateways/decisions and entities and ii) explain ways of improving the process using information systems and business process management.
15. For each of the processes listed below, i) identify one process objective and one corresponding measure, ii) explain how an information system can improve the process, iii) explain how it can be
improved by non‐ IS means (i.e. by management and/or by business process management principles)
a. Process of planning and executing a wedding
b. Process the pizza shop uses to buy supplies.
c. Process the Sydney Uni student uses to vary unit enrolment.
d. Process a real‐estate agency uses to rent a place to Uni students.
e. Process a restaurant uses for seating, ordering, cooking, delivering, and paying.
f. Process Uber Eats or other food delivery service uses to deliver food to customers.
16. Briefly explain the steps in a typical ‘expenditure cycle’ or ‘procure to pay’ process and a typical ‘revenue cycle’ or ‘order to cash’ process.
17. Given the customers’ privacy and sensitivity of health information, data security is vital for Angela’s pharmacy. In this context, explain FOUR key considerations for adopting an accounting system software solution.
18. Discuss various management accounting tools available in a typical ERP system such as SAP and analyze their key purposes and capabilities.
19. Cost allocation is an important capability of an SAP ERP system. Describe three allocation methods available in SAP ERP system and the differences between them with examples.
20. For each of the main activities in an expenditure cycle, I) identify and explain the potential threats and corresponding controls generally employed by business organizations (you must clearly identify a threat and suggest a control for that particular threat) and ii) identify relevant source documents and the example details those documents could contain (Please refer your answer to a particular firm
– e.g. restaurant, retail store, hotel, pharmacy or holiday resort or manufacturing firm.
21. For each of the main activities in a revenue cycle, i) identify and explain the potential threats and corresponding controls generally employed by business organizations (you must clearly identify a threat and suggest a control for that particular threat) and ii) identify relevant source documents and the example details those documents could contain (Please refer your answer to a particular firm – e.g. restaurant, retail store, hotel, pharmacy or holiday resort or manufacturing firm
22. Identifyand explain theinput,processingandoutputcontrols designed to ensure processingintegrity in the execution of a typical process.
23. For each of the internal control procedures listed below, indicate which purpose(s) of internal control it is designed to address: There are three key purposes i) efficiency & effectiveness of operations, ii) reliability of reporting and iii) compliance.
a. Conducting surprise cash counts
b. Creating a policy manual
c. Creating separate departments for purchasing inventory and receiving inventory
d. Deleting an employee’s computer account when the employee retires or is fired.
e. Employing internal auditors
f. Installing virus cleaning software on all computers
g. Locking filing cabinets with sensitive documents
h. Performing background checks on employees
i. Reconciling the bank statement monthly
j. Requiring all management employees to take annual vacations.
24. Describe the activities, threats and corresponding controls in the General Ledger and Reporting system.
25. What is balanced score card? Explain each of the four generic perspectives in the Balanced Score Card and how they are related?
26. What internal control procedure(s) would provide protection and be the most cost effective against the following threats. Identify the cycle this particular threat relates to ‐ i.e. expenditure cycle or revenue cycle:
a. Workers on the shipping dock steal goods, claiming that the inventory shortages reflect errors in the inventory records.
b. An employee posts the sales amount to the wrong customer account because he incorrectly keys the customer account number into the system.
c. An employee makes a credit sale to a customer who is already four months behind in making payments on his account.
d. An employee authorizes a credit memo for a salesreturnwhen the goods were never actually returned.
e. Customers are billed for the quantity ordered, but the quantity shipped is less because some items have been back ordered.
f. A waiter steals cash by destroying the customer sales ticket for customers who paid cash
g. A business experiences unauthorized disclosure of the buying habits of several well‐ known customers
h. The company’s website is unavailable for seven hours because of power outage
i. A purchasing agent orders materials from a supplier that she partially owns
j. Receiving dock personnel steal inventory and then claim the inventory was sent to the warehouse
k. The company fails to take advantage of 1% discount for promptly paying a vendor invoice
l. A company is late in paying a particular invoice. Consequently, a second invoice is sent, which crosses the first invoice’s payment in the mail. The second invoice is submitted for processing and paid.
m. Inventory records show that an adequate supply of copy paper should be in stock, but none is available on the supply shelf
27. Managers increasingly use a mixture of financial and non‐financial measures for organizational performance. Categorize eachofthefollowingpotential performance measures according to thefour balanced score card perspectives – financial, customer, internal process, and learning & growth.
a. Percentage of customer orders delivered on time
b. Rati of research and development cost to number of new products developed
c. Number of hours of employee training
d. Direct labour price variance
e. Market share
f. Percentage of customer orders delivered without error
g. Days in accounts receivables
h. Throughout price
i. Direct materials efficiency variance
j. Asset turnover
k. Employee retention rate
l. Percentage of bad debts collected
m. Customer satisfaction ratings
n. Number of degrees and certificates held per employee or department
o. Percentage of purchase orders that are error free
p. Defect rate
q. Graduation rate
r. Employer satisfaction ratings for an University Graduate
s. Cost per student per year
28. Balanced score card perspectives, performance objectives and potential performance measures for the balanced score card at Holiday Resorts are as follows
i. Financial, ii Customer, iii. Internal processes, iv) Learning & growth Performance objectives
a. Reduce housekeeping costs
b. Improve the quality of, and results from, advertising campaigns
c. Decrease vacancy rate during the off‐season
d. Increase number of return customers
e. Increase overall profits
f. Increase the use of internet‐ based reservations
g. Retain high‐quality employees
h. Increase the number of activities available to customers
i. Improve the quality of stay for holiday makers
j. Provide employee training in quality customer service
k. Reduce error rate in reservations
Potential performance measures:
1. Operating margin
2. Customer complaint rate
3. Survey customers at check‐ in about how they first heard about the resorts
4. Housekeeping cost per room
5. Number of employee hours spent in training
6. Error rate in reservation process
7. Percentage of reservations made using the website
8. Customer surveys about satisfaction and quality
9. Employee turnover rates
10. Number of activities per resort that are available to customers
11. Percentage and number of return customers
12. Number of hours of employee training offered
13. Vacancy rates
14. Customer focus groups inquiring about quality and potential success of advertising
15. Number of suggestions that improve quality of service
You are required to:
‐ Identify at least one appropriate performance objective (a – k) for each perspective (i – iv),
‐ Identify at least one appropriate performance measure (1 to 15) for each performance objective
(a to k)
‐ Briefly explain the links between various measures
29. Discuss the implications for internal control and auditing in an organization that has an integrated enterprise system such as SAP ERP in operation.
30. Briefly explain four management accounting (controlling) components embedded in SAP ERP system and explain how each of the SAP Management accounting components would assist in making managerial decisions and performance management in business organizations.
31. Briefly explain four types of analytics capabilities a business organisation would like to build and discuss how would they support decision‐ making.
32. A firm is considering the adoption of blockchain and would like you to explain the concept of a blockchain to management along with three significant advantages and three significant challenges.
33. What is Artificial Intelligence? Briefly explain different types of AI (according to Davenport & Ronanki (2018)
34. What are digital dashboards? How do they support performance management and decision making?
35. Briefly explain the best practices in data visualization and list key pitfalls in the design of dashboards
36. Compare the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing and recommend whether a small and medium sized enterprise should outsource all or some of its accounting tasks.
37. List the advantages and limitations (challenges) of blockchain technology and its specific impact on auditing and auditors.
38. Briefly explain the suitability, potential benefits, and challenges of adopting contemporary technologies available for managing the accounting and other processes of a small and medium sized enterprise and large enterprises. Consider the following technologies – Artificial Intelligence, RPA, Analytics, Blockchain and Integrated enterprise systems (ERPs).
2023-05-30