| Assessment Details and Submission Guidelines | |
| Trimester | T1 2019 |
| Unit Code | HI5019 |
| Unit Title | Strategic Information Systems for Business and Enterprise |
| Assessment Type | Individual assignment |
| Assessment Title | Case Study – Bell Studio |
| Purpose of the assessment (with ULO Mapping) | Students are required to:
|
| Weight | 20% of the total assessments |
| Total Marks | 20 |
| Word limit | Not more than 2,500 words |
| Submission Guidelines |
|
Background
Assignment Specifications
You are recently employed as a business analyst at Bell Studio, an Adelaide-based wholesaler of art supplies. Bell Studio sources its inventories from manufacturers in Australia, China, Japan and New Zealand. The company has a centralised accounting system with networked terminals at different locations. Bell Studio’s expenditure cycle procedures are described as follow:
Purchases System
The process begins when the purchasing clerk checks the inventory subsidiary ledger at his/her computer terminal each morning. When the quantity of an item is deemed to be too low, the clerk selects a vendor from the valid vendor file and prepares a digital purchase order. The clerk prints two hard copies: one copy is sent to the vendor, and the other is filed in the purchasing department. Digital purchase order record is added to the purchase order file.
When the goods arrive in the receiving department, the receiving clerk inspects them and reconciles the items against the information in the digital purchase order and the packing slip. The clerk then manually prepares two hard copies of the receiving reports. One of these accompanies the goods to the inventory warehouse, where the clerks shelves the goods and updates the inventory subsidiary ledger from his/her computer terminal. The clerk then files the receiving report in the department. The other copy of the receiving report is sent to the accounts payable department, where the accounts payable clerk files it until the supplier’s invoice arrives. When the accounts payable clerk receives the invoice he pull the receiving report from the temporary file, prints a hard copy of the digital purchase order, and reconciles the three documents. At this time, the clerk updates the digital accounts payable subsidiary ledger, the accounts payable control account and the inventory control account in the general ledger from his terminal. The clerk then sends the invoice, receiving report, and the purchase order copy to the cash disbursement department.
Cash Disbursements System
Upon the receipt of the documents from the accounts payable department, the cash disbursements clerk files the documents until their payment due date. On the due date, the clerk prepares a cheque for the invoiced account, when is sent to the treasurer who sign it and mail the cheque to the vendor.
The cash disbursements clerk then updates the cheque register, accounts payable subsidiary ledger, and the accounts payable control account from his/her computer terminal. Finally, the receiving clerk files the invoice, purchase order copy, receiving report, and cheque copy in the department.
Payroll System
Bell Studio’s employees record their hours worked on time cards every day. Their supervisors review the time cards for correctness and submit them to the payroll department at the end of each week. Using a computer terminal connected to the central payroll system, which is located in the data processing department, the payroll clerk inputs the time card data, prints hard copies of the pay cheques, print two copies of the payroll register, and posts to digital employee records. The payroll clerk files the time cards in the payroll department and sends the employee pay cheques to the various supervisors for review and distribution to their respective department employees. The payroll clerk then sends one copy of the payroll register to the accounts payable department, and files the other with the time cards in the payroll department.
The accounts payable clerk reviews the payroll register and manually prepares a disbursement voucher. The clerk sends the voucher and the payroll register to the general ledger department. The accounts payable clerk then writes a cheque for the entire payroll and deposits it in the imprest account at the bank. Finally the clerk files a copy of the cheque in the accounts payable department.
Once the general ledger clerk receives the voucher and payroll register, the clerk posts to the general ledger from the department computer terminal and files the voucher and payroll register in the department.
Required
Prepare a report to Chief Operating Officer to evaluate the processes, risks and internal controls for its expenditure cycle. In your report, you need to include the following items:
Assignment Structure
The report should include the following components:
The report should be grounded on relevant literature and all references must be properly cited and included in the reference list.
Course code date
Assessment title: case study Bell studio
Executive summary
This study focuses on the case study on bell studio. The ERP system of the company is analysed in detail. With proper research internal weakness of the system has been found out .system flowchart and data diagrams have been given to make the reader understand the functionality of the System
Introduction
Information system that are used by organisation to gain competitive advantage in the business market is known as strategic information system (Pearlson et al, 2016). With the help of these system business owners decrease the rate of services or rate of the product (Alamri et al, 2016). Many IT experts says that statrtergic information system or sim is a salient feature of the information system. With these kind of system business are able to process, manage and transfer the information that they receive or create. The strategic information helps the organisation in proper planning. Meaning with the help of planning from the system, the organisation can determine its success and failure (Alamri et al, 2016). In addition with the help of this system, all the projects of the can have a favourable return. Showing good reports of successful projects can get investors for the organisation (Pearlson et al, 2016). With the help of such system proper communication can be found in different departments of the organisation and all the pre-existence system will have the ability to interface properly and avoid the problem of automation.
In this assignment the case study of bell Studio is considered. With the help of the case study, this assignment will reveal various financial, transaction, management reporting system. In addition this assignment will help the reader understand risk of using the information system and the role of ethics that are related to it. Furthermore this assignment will also focus on the computer fraud that are related to strategic information and the assignment will also recommend some of the ways to avoid it.
System flowchart of the purchase system
Fig1: system flowchart shows the creation of purchase order file system by the clerk from his computer terminal.
Figure 2: shows the system flowchart from the receiving clerk to the cash reimbursement system
The purchase system of bell studio is done in two sections. One is known as the creation of purchase order file from the clerk to the vendor and other is from the receiving clerk to the cash reimbursement system. The system has a prime pillar known as the purchasing clerk and the receiving clerk. The purchasing clerk awakes up every morning and checks the inventory with the helpful of a computer terminal. If the inventory is low, then the clerks selects a vendor from valid vendor file and then maintain a digital purchase order. Once the digital purchase order is created, the clerk makes two copies, one is made for the vendor and other is made purchasing department. When all this process is completed, the record of the digital order is screened in purchase order file
Once the purchase order file is created it gets arrived in the purchasing department. The main job of the receiving clerk is to inspect the terms against the purchase order slip. Once the inspection is done the receiving clerk prepares two reports. Once is sent to the inventor where the clerk updates the inventory file and the one copy is sent to accounts department. At this point of time, the receiving clerk updates three account one is known as the account and the other is known as digital account and the inventory account. Once completed the receiving clerk sends the receiving report and the invoice to the cash disbursement system.
System flowchart of cash reimbursement system
Fig1: system flowchart shows the cash reimbursement system of bell studio
Accounts payable departments sends the receipt to the employees who handle the cash reimbursement system. The employees checks the payment due date. On the time of the due date, the cash reimbursement clerk prepares the invoice of the check that to the treasurer which needs to be send to the vendor. Once signed by the treasurer, the payment is initiated to the vendor.
Once the payment is made, the cash reimbursement clerk updates the cash register, subsidiary ledger, accounts department and from his own computer terminal. In the end the receiving clerk files the receiving report and the purchase copy to the department concerned
System flow chart of the payroll system
Fig1: system flowchart shows phase 1 of the system of the payroll system
Fig 2: system flowchart showing the phase 2 of the payroll system
Bell studio works on a unique payroll system. The payroll system implemented by bell studio records the work time of the employees on the in the form time cards. The senior management system, also known as the supervisors, see the time cards and then submit the report to the employees who handle the payroll system. This is the time when the payroll clerk comes into the action. The majority of the work is done by the payroll clerk. The payroll clerk performs a thorough check on the time card and the he moves on to the next step. Now the clerk, prints two copies of the payroll register and then print hard copy of the pay checks. Finally he records all the process in the digital employee records from his computer terminal. Once done, the payroll clerk sends checks to the accounts department for verification and also to the supervisors of the various department. The job of the payroll clerk ends here.
The second phase comes with accounts payable clerk. The main job of the accounts payable clerk is to create a disbursement voucher. The disbursement voucher is created manually looking at the payroll register. Once the voucher is created the, the main job of the accounts payable clerk is to send the voucher and the payroll register to the to the department of general ledger. Once the approval comes from the general ledger department, the accounts payable clerk writes a checks to the bank for the entire payroll and deposits. Then deposit is filed in the accounts department by the accounts payable clerk.
Data flow diagram of purchase system
Figure 1: shows the phase 1 of the purchase system
Figure 1: shows the phase 2 of the purchase system
Data flow diagram of cash reimbursement system
Figure 1: shows the cash reimbursement system of Bell studio
Data flow diagram of payroll system
Figure 1: shows the phase 1 payroll system of Bell studio
Figure 2: shows the phase 2 of the purchase system
Internal weakness in purchase order system
Purchase order system is basically a system that is designed to document purchase documents agreements and documents related to it. In layman’s terms a purchase system (Bacallao et al, 2018) is implemented in an organisation, to see what are the things that the organisation is paying for are. Since bell studio deals in artwork it needs to keep track of the artworks that is kept in their inventory, with the help of this system the bell studio is able to document various things like quantity, product, and delivery date, billing address, payment terms and price per unit (Baykasoğlu and Gölcük, 2017). Though it has number of benefits it is subjected to some internal weakness which can be stated as follows:
Internal weakness of the cash reimbursement system
Cash reimbursement system is a quick method for providing funds to the vendors. In addition the payments made by the cash imbursement system are hard to track and can be easily be forgotten and thus it becomes a challenge (Power et al, 2016). In addition cash reimbursement system are not helpful when large vendors are dealt with. For instance, most of the vendors of bell studio are from Australia, New Zealand, china and japan. All these are large vendors when for bell studio, so cash reimbursement system becomes feasible for large expenses. For bell studio the cash reimbursement system can be subjected to in internal threats which can summarised as follows:
Internal weakness in the payroll system
Implementing an ideal payroll system is critical for every organisation. The payroll system is implemented to avoid poor performance from the employees and keeping their spirt and morale high every time (Chen et al, 2017). The payroll system implemented by bell studio serves certain advantages like accurate payslips, yearend reporting, tax legislation and calculation bonuses, holiday and expenses for the employees. Though it has lots of advantages, it is subjected internal weakness. Some of the weakness can be can be listed as follows:
Risk involved in ERP system of bell studio
There are thousands of vendors who offer software’s related to ERP. Thus choosing a right software that would full dill the business requirements of bell studio is a challenging task. Thus the top management should select an ideal software that would provide a favourable outcome according to the convenience of bell studio
There is no stability in business nowadays. Customers are changing demands from day to day (Haruna et al, 2015). Thus the ERPO system that is implemented by studio should give them proper planning to address the change. Any ERP system that cannot tars form itself with the change of the customer is useless.
The ERP keeps working fine in bell studio, because it gets updated weekly. Experts recommend a daily update from the software to avoid any hassle. Every update contains some bug fix which makes the software efficient and lag free. Thus there is a high risk if daily update is not maintained.
Choices make great difference, for the proper functioning of ERP. From the case study, it is very evident the ERP used in bell studio can be subjected to attacks from the cybercriminals. No use of bleeding edge technology or start-up have generated risk in the system
ERP system available on bell studio show, no software stability. According Li et al (2017), ERP system were filled with bugs which did not provide a regular vendor update. The whole cash reimbursement system was faulty.
How to avoid fraud in ERP
SoD stands for segregation of duties. Most of ERP since all the users have access to end to end tasks (Haruna et al, 2015). The key to break this process and make sure that only trusted individuals are able to handle end to end tasks
Bell studio could avoid security creep with the access reviews. This means that the managers of bell studio would have the ability to check which employee have access to what. This will ensure that all the user rights are aligned and with no faults in the system. In addition when employees are terminated from the office, they should be denied ERP access. In the option of $# period access reviews are important to keep the ERP system of bell studio and clean.
Auditing is one thing the bell studio should implement as soon as possible. The department of bell studio have wide range of access, but should be kept in check. There must be a process to track the activities of the privileged users to make them feel that they checked (Baykasoğlu, and Gölcük, 2017)
From the above information, it is clear that the bell studio has been facing a number of problems with the ERP systems. These are some internal weakness that should be mitigated at all cost. Steps to overcome this dicculties are given in the assignment, so that company can see how to tackle ERP problems. The use of ERP system have placed the company in a competitive advantage and have given high profits.
Login
Pages: 4
Words: 890