chapter 1
accounting information systems: An overview
Suggested Answers to Discussion Questions
1.1 The value of information is the difference between the benefits realized from using that information and the costs of producing it. Would you, or any organization, ever produce information if its expected costs exceeded its benefits? If so, provide some examples. If not, why not? Most organizations produce information only if its value exceeds its cost. However, there are two situations where information may be produced even if its cost exceeds its value. a. It is often difficult to estimate accurately the value of information and the cost of producing it. Therefore, organizations may produce information that they expect
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While this active learning activity takes more time than a lecture does, it drives the point home much better than a lecture would. It also keeps the students more engaged in the material.
1.4 How do an organization’s business processes and lines of business affect the design of its AIS? Give several examples of how differences among organizations are reflected in their AIS. An organization’s AIS must reflect its business processes and its line of business. For example: * Manufacturing companies will need a set of procedures and documents for the production cycle; non-manufacturing companies do not. * Government agencies need procedures to track separately all inflows and outflows from various funds, to ensure that legal requirements about the use of specific funds are followed. * Financial institutions do not need extensive inventory control systems. * Passenger service companies (e.g., airlines, bus, and trains) generally receive payments in advance of providing services. Therefore, extensive billing and accounts receivable procedures are not needed; instead, they must develop procedures to account for prepaid revenue. * Construction firms typically receive payments at regular intervals, based on the percentage of work completed. Thus, their revenue cycles must be designed to track carefully all work performed and the
If the above is not done then this can result in businesses wasting money on the wrong thing and the gathering of wrong information can cause lack in customer service on their part resulting in poor quality decisions making the business look less efficient and less organised.
2. Amir Bonakdar, T. W. (2013). Transformative Influence of Business Processes on the Business Model: Classifying the State of the Practice in the Software Industry. Hawaii: Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.
Reinforces important lesson concepts and prepares students for the next lesson. Loops back to the objective and involves students.
Incorrect information can have serious negative effects and can affect a company’s financial status and values. Accuracy of information will help executives plan ahead for the future and lay goals. They will also be able to plan for the
Information theory is the modern theory of organization that views organizations as requiring constant input of information in order to continue functioning systemically and productively; assumes that a lack of information will lead to chaos in organizational operations (p.165). Decision making includes making a choice to alter some existing condition, choosing one course of action in preference to others, expending some amount of organizational assets or individual resources to implement the decision, and acting with the expectation of gaining something desirable (p.194). Things that are important to the decision-making process includes increasing potential gains, monitoring the ongoing decisional process, and reducing the resource expenditure, uncertainty, and risk involved in achieving whatever gains are made (p. 195). Through every carefully thought out decision the government makes on behalf of its citizens there are risks involved. A risk involved in routine decision making is that decision makers may fail to perceive a need to reconsider existing policy or program assumptions on which routine decisions are based (p.195).
Students have their own best way in effectively learning the lesson. With the diversity of students, the problem is each student has a preferred learning style. It becomes undeniably one of the reasons that make it difficult to achieve the best expected outcome out of teachers’ effort. However, teachers try to incorporate various teaching techniques to make every learning opportunity become productive, meaningful, and relevant for the learners.
In the previous section we determined the impact of management information on decision making process within an organisation. One of the Critical Success Factors (CSF) that enables effective decision making is “Information sharing”. This allows managers to take the right decision at the right time.
Information theory is the modern theory of organization that views organizations as requiring constant input of information in order to continue functioning systemically and productively; assumes that a lack of information will lead to chaos in organizational operations (p.165). Decision making includes making a choice to alter some existing condition, choosing one course of action in preference to others, expending some amount of organizational assets or individual resources to implement the decision, and acting with the expectation of gaining something desirable (p.194). Things that are important to the decision-making process includes increasing potential gains, monitoring the ongoing decisional process, and reducing the resource expenditure, uncertainty, and risk involved in achieving whatever gains are made (p. 195). Through every carefully thought out decision the government makes on behalf of its citizens there are risks involved. A risk involved in routine decision making is that decision makers may fail to perceive a need to reconsider existing policy or program assumptions on which routine decisions are based (p.195).
The assessment of Bradmark’s internal controls over its revenue cycle procedures were done through the
What kind of systems are described in this case? Identify and describe the business processes each supports. Describe the inputs, processes, and outputs of these systems.
As the new CIO of Volkswagen of America (VWoA), Dr. Uwe Matulovic brings an impressive resume that includes ample experience in aligning business process management (BPM), business process re-engineering (BPR) and the insights necessary to create the Business Process Technology Organization (BPTO). As the IT projects within VWoA have lacked governance and are facing a severe budget shortfall of $150M, Dr. Matulovic has a formidable challenge. He must first align all existing IT projects to strategic initiatives, which is the essence of effective IT governance (Huang, Zmud, Price, 2010) and then he must define processes to stabilize these strategies yet ensure integration still occurs at the process and system level (Korac-Kakabadse, Kakabadse, 2001). All of these factors need to be taken into account as VWoA is evaluating up to 22 new models with will have an exponential, nearly chaotic impact on their existing IT systems and their ability to respond. Further, the VWoA business has continued to suffer from a lack of unified focus of IT spending to overall strategic initiatives. This lack of governance has created a process of defining IT priorities more defined by the persuasive ability of managers, their ability to build compelling Return on Investment (ROI) arguments, and
Buckley and Casson proposed that knowledge is a public good and hence can be transferred easily across the world. The basic assumption about this is that they consider everybody should have equal knowledge. They also stressed on the point that information is important as well and the cost related with information is a handicap for the firm.
Introduction: The following assignment explores the importance of using information to inform and support strategic decision making to achieve organisational goals and objectives as set out by unit learning outcomes (LO) pertaining to this unit 7004. These four learning outcomes are to: LO1: Be able to understand the impact of management information on decision making; LO2: Be able to understand the importance of information sharing within the organisation; LO3: Be able use information to inform and support strategic decision making; and LO4: Be able to monitor and review management information. In order to achieve these learning objectives, the writer has drawn upon from his practical work
These facts can be used to give a snapshot of a company’s situation at a particular point in time but can only offer a limited view to what lies in the future.
Business must endlessly update their systems to keep up with the changes that occurs with their business process. Business processes are continually trying to find many ways to accomplish new and shifting goals for the business. New or shifting goals, such as changing the responsible for a current business process, or combining more than one responsible into one can be difficult and needs a clear understanding of multi-tiered systems and the business processes itself. The absence of connection among requirement and employment can lead to problems in recognizing the suitable program which must be changed to further increase the worthiness of a system in response to the new goals. Unfortunately, these changes can lead to errors and can make take longer than expected.