Strategic Information System for Eureka Limited

This report analyzes various accounting software and recommends the best software for Eureka Limited to improve their financial management and business efficiency.

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STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM
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Executive Summary
This report has analyzed various important and popular accounting software in the market
and has analyzed the features of the software. Features of the software has been described
in details and this is done for each of the software and this has provided a comprehensive
overview about the software advantages and disadvantages. Eureka limited, due to
increase in client and business volume, they need more comprehensive approach for
managing their financial statements with greater business efficiency. SAP as ERP
package is recommended to Eureka limited as it is economical, provides necessary
features required for effective accounting, less complicated and also easier to use. Hence
this software is recommend to Eureka limited.
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Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................................3
Business Requirements...............................................................................................................3
Software Selection..........................................................................................................................4
ERP Systems................................................................................................................................4
MYOB..........................................................................................................................................7
Xero............................................................................................................................................9
Vendor Selection..........................................................................................................................11
Conclusions...................................................................................................................................12
References....................................................................................................................................14
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Introduction
The report provides a detailed description about various accounting software and
how this accounting software provide various benefits in terms of accounting and
performance. This analysis will be done in accordance with the requirements of Eureka
limited to identify and analyze various issues that the organization needs to improve. This
will help in providing an effective accounting software while it ensures a proper and
optimum balance between prices, security and features. Therefore the report aims to
provide a comprehensive overview about the software advantages and disadvantages
along with suggestion for best software for Eureka limited for executing their accounting
related activities to improve business process and ensures profit in the business that is an
important requirement for Eureka limited.
Business Requirements
Eureka Limited which is a family owned company has an estimated number of 73
employees. Due to some improved business strategy and product portfolio, the sales
revenue of the company has increased which accounts for around $ 18.5 million or more
and this revenue has been achieved during the past year. It is present in business for over
55 years and its major business process is to deliver beverages and its client includes a
number of different businesses which include supermarkets and some pub-chains.
according to the internal assessment done by the company, over the years the company in
terms of business performance has some mixed result as sometime revenue was higher
than what the company expected, while in some cases its revenue in the business has
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been significantly poor and hence therefore improvement was required in business, but in
the last few years with some innovate product portfolio and improved business strategy, it
has registered a growth in terms of number of orders it received and this is mainly
because of some of its new healthy product ranges that the company has manufactured in
these years.
However, recently the organization has identified that it was not able to deliver some of
its product at competitive price, this has affected its business and it has even lost some of
its important accounts. It is not that the company does not have any professional
accountant, it even hired an accountant for managing its account related activities, and it
is just not enough. According to the company, due to increase in client and business
volume, they need more comprehensive approach for managing their financial statements
with greater business efficiency. Therefore the business requirement according to the
company is to collect even more information than what it has collected in these years
regarding their financial aspects of the business and for that they want to have an option
for accounting software for automate this process and the financial aspect of the business
with greater efficiency. Therefore the main business requirement of the company is to
integrate an accounting software with the business process and increase business
efficiency as well through automation and improved financial management for increasing
profit in the business process.
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Software Selection
ERP Systems
ERP is an advanced and general purpose enterprise software which integrates
various functionalities such as accounting, sales, inventory and consumer management
and the main advantage of this ERP system is that all of the services mentioned here are
automated by the software, thus helps in ensuring that the services are easier to manage
and it reduces chances of error too which increases productivity in the organization. One
of the widely considered enterprise resource planning software is SAP which modern
organizations deploy for effective management of their organizational services. SAP
helps in deploying a central database which provides the required framework for
integrating information regarding sales and accounting for providing an accurate
description of the accounting activities within the organization. The database is shared in
nature which means at the same time various users are able to access data provided they
have required authorization that is required to access the database. Hence this is an
excellent way to share information across various departments and this ensures that
communication with the departments are not only proper but effective as well. This
means for executing the accounting the process whatever additional information is
required apart from accounting department is also available. ERP offers cloud integration
as well which means that the database is possible to deploy in the cloud sever. If cloud
sever is integrated with the software, it is possible to access information and important
data anywhere and anytime which improves data collection, data storage and data access
through integration of cloud sever with the ERP software.
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Eureka Limited for its nature of business process requires to store various
accounting related information such as details of raw material pricing, and sales invoice
as well. accurate and latest information regarding raw material pricing, market price
offered by other competitors and the expense that Eureka Limited makes throughout their
manufacturing process. All of these expenses are important for Eureka Limited as it helps
them to decide appropriate pricing for their products to make it competitive without
compromising in the quality of the products.
One of the possible benefits of the ERP software is that it increases sharing of
data with other departments making data sharing streamlined and effective. If ERP
system is not considered in Eureka Limited, they might find it difficult to share
information between various departments as there is no such option in the company that
ensures automation of this process and hence investing in ERP system is beneficial for
Eureka Limited. Another drawback for not implementing ERP is that sharing of data
between the departments would be complex as it will require permission from higher
authority before data is shared between those departments which will affect the business
process.
However, while investing in ERP Eureka Limited needs to review the required
infrastructure and financial resources and this is why ERP is often suggested for large
organization. However, it does not mean that small and medium enterprises should not
consider this ERP system. Even, modern organizations, especially the SMEs are investing
in ERP because even though it is initially expensive and does require annual maintenance
cost, but the benefits it provides to the business is worth investing in ERP system.
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MYOB
Millions of business around the world is considering the cloud service offered by
MYOB and it is particularly customized for the small business considering their business
structure and financial structure so that the service is consistent with the overall business
process. The service that is offered by this software are cash expenditure, payroll
management and daily accounting services that are required by the organizations. One
significant improvement that the software provides is replacement of manual
bookkeeping process with automated service. This is a huge improvement in terms of
organizational process especially for small and medium organization. When any
organizational process is managed in manual process, there is chance of error in that
process due to human made errors. However, it does not specifies that will no error if
automation is considered, but the chances of that error is less compared to human made
errors. Along with that automation also helps in executing the process faster which
improves the overall efficiency of the system.
When manual accounting software is considered, there is one problem.
Employees who are managing accounting related activities requires to update the
accounting log over and over and this repetitive task sometime becomes time consuming
and also increases chances of error. One significant issue however is that, if any
accounting information is not entered manually in the accounting software, this
information will not be updated in the accounting log which might create discrepancies
during the financial auditing which might lead to financial loss as well for the company.
However, the software considered in this context is way more efficient than the manual
software. the software allows to generate number of orders, orders shipped, payments
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made and a detailed payroll information and that too without any significant effort, all
that it requires is the software itself and hence this is an efficient software to deploy in the
organization for efficiently managing the accounting services.
MYOB generate reports which include Statement regarding Cash Flow and Profit
along with Loss Summary. These reports are very important as it help in the management
team which is required for developing better understanding along with detailed
description for effectively managing business process and how it is being executed for
ensuring optimum profit while keeping the investment as low as possible. As for
example, it requires to check Statement of Cash Flow which provides the managers
insight so that they can have an proper idea to decide if it is required for the organization
to identify if there is any requirement for the firm to analyze cash flow problems and
whether there is any such issues or if there is any chance for cash flow issue that might
affect the organization in the near future which might affect the financial status of the
organization. Hence this information is also helpful in assessing the financial condition of
the organization and issues regarding the financial performance is identified in a detailed
way so that those issues are easier to resolve rather than identifying that when due to this
financial issues organizational process and business profit has been affected significantly.
Unlike manual accounting software, which requires to ensure that each department that
are associated with developing financial statement present their data and without that the
complete report is not generated which is required if organization want to identify what is
the major issues in terms of financial sourcing, financial expenses made, whether
improvement required and all of this information are only possible to identify if compete
financial report is generated integrating all of the financial data associated with various
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departments. It is not only enough to gather financial data from various departments and
generate the financial report, accuracy is of prime importance in this context. MYOB
automatically collect accounting information from various departments and generate
accurate and detailed financial report which is important for Eureka Limited as they
recently had problem in securing some of their accountants for issues in deciding
competitive price for some of its products. Due to this there is a significant impact on the
financial performance of Eureka Limited and this being a small enterprise, the impact is
even more significant as it have limited financial resources.
However, the major concern that affects the performance of MYOB is lack of
control over data security, and this issue is informed by around 50% of its consumer base.
As data is stored in the database that is accessed online, there is a significant issue for
data security due to hacking, illegal data access and data exploitation. Although there are
issues in security, it is required to consider that MYOB has various important strategies
for enhancing their security services and this is evident in their investment for security
infrastructure and integration of sate of the art security policies which ensures that data is
safe and secured. However, due to sophisticated security control companies often find it
difficult to manage security of the software properly and lack of technical competency of
the organization often makes data vulnerable. However, if managed properly, it offers an
enhanced data security.
Xero
It is one of the popular accounting software that is considered by small business in
Australia for executing accounting related activities. Different industries in Australia has
chosen this software for accounting services. One of the best features of this software is
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that its interface is really simple and does not require high technical competency for
accessing its features. It even does not require a previous experience in accounting. It
provides various ready to use services which are easy to learn and hence effective in
application for organizations where organizations do not have professional accountant.
Some of the accounting functions that are considered by the organizations for financial
calculations for example double bookkeeping, makes the accounting process
complicated. Compared to other accounting software, this software simplifies this
software simplifies accounting concepts that are often hard to implement, even for a
professional accountant. Hence this software is focused for organizations where lack of
professional knowledge in accounting affects the financial management. However as
already identified Eureka Limited has employed professional accountant for their
accounting related services, it might seem that there might not be no requirement for
investing in such software, but it will actually improve this process.
Xero provides option for executing business transaction and that too right from
the bank account and it is a significant feature for ensuring that there is no issue in the
financial statement as direct transaction from the bank account makes it easier to gather
information about the transaction in real time which is a significant improvement from
managing this transaction statements with the help from accountant. Now there might be
error if those transaction are not entered into database with exact transaction date.
However, this software makes it easier to keep track of these transaction as the software
automatically update the database along with transaction date when any transaction takes
place and hence there is less chance of error in financial report that is prepared according
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to the financial expenditure of the company. Hence this software too is an effective
choice for Eureka Limited.
Vendor Selection
It has been assessed that most of the organization needs to consider various of
factors while they select ERP solution for their organization. It is essential for the
selection process that it must be offering evidence of due diligence. As per the discussion
it can take many years for the entire system to work perfectly within the entity. While this
process is executing, failure of service and increased cost of ownership is able to take the
entire place without being anticipated. Thus, for the selection of the vendors evaluation
process is important. In this context two types of vendors will be discussed which are the
Epicor and SAP.
As per the requirement of the system, both of the Epicor and the SAP is capable
of providing the data security on a regular basis. Through this the risk of attachment of
the system with some external parties can be mitigated very easily. But in this context the
SAP is having some of the crucial advantages over the Epicor as it is consisting various
of advanced functions which are related with the management of the inventory and
replenishment and allocation. Currently the Eureka Limited is a retailer business and for
them management of the inventory is very much crucial. In this case it has been already
mentioned that the SAP is having some important advantages over the SAP and one of
the prior reason behind that is the assortment distribution model which provides the
capability to the users for setting the store week covers and it can also track the record of
the sales. The store week cover is capable of automatic calculation of the total number of
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units which are required by each of the stores. The SAP is also beneficial for the Eureka
Limited as it allows setting different types of attributes to the inventory. Store attributes
can also be uploaded by the SAP while this type of sophisticated inventory management
system is not provided by the Epiocor.
Another strong point for the SAP is that an effective customer relationship
management is provided by this software. The Implemented CRM of the organization can
help in this case by managing the entire customer life cycle for satisfaction of the
customers. Detailed call history can also be managed by this system for maintaining the
queries of the customer. From that all of the complains of the customer can be managed.
Though the SAP is having various of advantages, but still it must be admitted that
the SAP is currently more in line with the Microsoft suite and due to reason it will be
very much easy for the organizations to work on Microsoft Office Products and
uploading the file directly to the SAP. For the SAP it is somehow complex as in this case
file must be converted to the CSV version for uploading. For forecasting purpose it is
also very much important utilize the SAP. Here the SAP can provide real time financial
reports by obtaining reliable and accurate financial reports for the prediction purpose.
Thus the SAP is effective tool for accounting management and decision making.
Conclusions
This report has analyzed various important and popular accounting software in the
market and has analyzed the features of the software. Features of the software has been
described in details and this is done for each of the software and this has provided a
comprehensive overview about the software advantages and disadvantages. It is
identified that no software is proper and has issues in some aspects while has advantages
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in other aspect. Hence it is important to identify a proper and optimum balance between
price, security and features along with the disadvantages that the software has. Eureka
limited, due to increase in client and business volume, they need more comprehensive
approach for managing their financial statements with greater business efficiency. Hence
it is required for them to select a proper accounting software that not only meets their
business requirements, but also provides optimum price option for implementing the
software and this and in according to this requirements, Epicor as ERP package is
recommended to Eureka limited as it is economical, provides necessary features required
for effective accounting, less complicated and also easier to use. Hence this software is
recommend to Eureka limited.
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