Selecting AIS/ERP for Investment in Accounting Software: B Bakers

This report examines the process of selecting an Accounting Information System (AIS) or Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system for B Bakers, a family-owned bakery facing increased competition and the need for improved decision-making. The report begins by outlining B Bakers' business processes and requirements, highlighting the limitations of their current manual accounting methods and the need for software to assist in cost management, financial analysis, and strategic planning. It details the benefits of implementing ERP and Decision Support Systems (DSS), emphasizing the need for features such as robust reporting, data visualization, automatic updates, customization, cloud backup, and interoperability. The report then outlines the system requirements, focusing on the importance of analyzing and reporting capabilities, graphical representations, and the ability to adapt to changing business needs. The selection process involves a critical evaluation of software features and vendor options, culminating in recommendations to help the bakery make an informed investment decision. The goal is to improve operational efficiency, reduce costs, and facilitate better decision-making to maintain a competitive edge in the market. The report also includes recommendations on how the company can use the decision support system in order to manage the cost complexities and manage the cost to the maximum possible manner.

The processes of selecting an AIS/ERP to make
informed decision for investment in accounting software
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Table of Contents
Executive Summary.....................................................................................................................................3
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................4
Business process of B Bakers......................................................................................................................5
Business requirements of B bakery organization.........................................................................................6
Outcomes required for the desired and current processes of B bakers.........................................................7
Determine the system requirement..............................................................................................................8
Software selection.....................................................................................................................................10
Vendor selection........................................................................................................................................12
Conclusion and recommendation...............................................................................................................16
References.................................................................................................................................................17
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Executive Summary
Analyst in its report initiated while discussing the key process that is currently followed by the
Bakery business organization. Various aspects of the business are being discussed in the current
report. Business analyst also mentioned the fact the reasons due to which bakery organization are
losing some key customers. Various requirements in terms of implanting an ERP and DSS
software tools to assist the management in routine operations and to take decisions with the
better approach are been mentioned along with this report. Researcher reviewed various facts and
figures while selecting the most suitable software that will assist the overall business process.
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Introduction
The success and growth of any enterprise depend upon the resources utilized by them for
managing and operating the business processes. With the growth and development of
organization simply depending upon the accounting software is not enough, the business
organization has to implant certain software which will help them in the decision-making process
and allied activities. These software's follows an interactive approach that will help the business
managers to make strategic decisions and give business a new height. Apart from accounting
certain ERP and decision support systems help the business in managing key areas of
accounting, taxation, inventory management payroll management, budgeting, ratio analysis and
control, business forecasting, etc (Van Der Aalst, 2013). In the current report of B bakery firm
researcher discussed need and relevance of integrating the above-mentioned software in the
current business process. Various benefits, system requirements and selection process of
different ERP tools are discussed along with.
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Business process of B Bakers
The particular assignment works related to a family owned bakery group known as B bakery.
The particular family owns the respective business since last 50 years and currently, it is
smoothly running around with around 70 workers and employees working for the group. Over
the period time, the business has attained an immense growth and development in terms of
revenue and profitability. In the recent past as it is depicted in the financial statements that the
group revenue has reached to the benchmark level of $ 13.50 Million. The current business
process of the company deals with selling of bread and other bakery products to the B2C market
and B2B market. The particular firm with the overall aim objective of growth and development
has introduced a wide range of products to its stock portfolio. This includes the introduction of
new range of healthy products into the external market by the B bakery firm. The family bakery
firm has witnessed several ups and down in financial terms over the span of time. The financial
analyst while focusing on the last period accounts has witnessed the fact that due to enhancement
in the level of competition the company has lost few of its key customer accounts. The
management of the firm should develop its strategic planning approach in such a manner that it
ensures the development of a process that it meets out the requirement of changing external
environment requirements.
The current accounting and financial management process of the company revolves around the
traditional approach of accounting which includes recording and fetching of accounting data
from the manual accounting records (Harmon, 2010). There is no analysis and reports generated
out of such accounting systems that will help the management of the bakery group in taking
better decisions. The current accounting systems of the business group cater only the structured
problems and issues and the output generated has very little analytical capabilities. These
systems are currently inflexible to the external environment changes (Scheer, 2012).
Certain systems are needed to be developed by the management in order to take decisions with a
long term approach that will help the firm to meet out the business objectives. In place of the
normalaccountingsystem, the firm must implant a decision support system that will support not
only the accounting jobs in relation to the firm but also will cater the management requirement of
utilizing the output information for various sources. It will help the management in the key areas
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of operational control and other decision-making functions in relation to the firm. Not only it will
cater the structured issues and problems but also provides the suggestions for the semi structured
and unstructured issues.
As the current bakery organization is facing out the competition due to the high price of its
certain products the company can utilize the system of Decision support system technique in
order to manage the cost complexity. Individual product cost is evaluated using the relevant
costing approach as a part of DSS helps the firm to ascertain the actual price that has been
incurred in making particular products for the customers. Budgeting control as a technique of
DSS supports the management in controlling the cost to maximum possible manner. These
budgets will set up a benchmark for the production department to get the particular product
developed at the desired cost (Power & Sharda, 2009). With the help of particular DSS, a
variance report is generated on a timely basis which will figure out the deviation and present
them to the management in pictorial formats using graphs, charts, tables etc.
Business requirements of B bakery organization
As in general each and every process of the organization is of due relevance and indispensable
but there are some key areas which are needed to be catered on the priority. Financial and cost
accountancy management is a basic area of importance which is needed to be taken care of on
the higher part. In the particular case of a B bakery family owned firm, the particular
organization in spite of achieving high growth is facing out the issue of losing certain customers
due to high competition in the external market environment. The management of the firm is now
realizing the fact that mere creating the dependency on the financial statement for the decision
making purpose is not enough, it requires additional support systems and ERP tools to
effectively and efficiently work out the overall decision-making process (Bradley, 2008).
The prime focus of implementing the above-mentioned systems is to be flexible and adaptable in
the decision-making process. The cost accounting part of the system evaluates the fact whether
the cost calculated for the product is accurate or not. It is not necessary to implant a pre-
packaged system the organization can go for the tailor made systems which can meet out the
current requirement of the firm. Some of the requirements of the B bakery group are detailed as
follows –
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For working out the better decision making of the group all the necessary accounts are
needed to integrate.
Implanting better support system such as DSS, ERP, and EIS etc. This will generate an
effective platform for the improved business environment. These systems comprehend better
solution to the problems of the bakery firm and report a structured approach to the organization
performance.
While examining the quantitative data of the organization for the past years and similar
data of the business firm of similar nature the current standings and performance of the group
areanalyzed and discussed (Aronson, et. al., 2015).
Outcomes required for the desired and current processes of B bakers
The current process of the family owned group is in relation to the manual or
computerizedaccounting part. There are certain issues and lacking with the accounting part. The
company needs to implant certain systems in its current process that will support the overall
decision-making process of the firm. The management of the bakery firm installed these systems
in order to attain certain outcomes and fulfill the overall objectives of the organization. Some of
them are bulleted as follows-
The firm requires the effective and efficient data processing in terms of accounting and
cost management part from the installed systems. It is also expected that the particular software
will make a comparative analysis of the firm on the basis of past financial performance and with
the financials of the other companies working in similar environment and nature.
It is expected that the system incorporated must provide data in form of pictorial charts
and graphs in order to create a comparative analysis of the financial database.
At present, the organization B bakers are facing out the issue of losing out customers due
to nonsymmetric prices of products as in the comparison of its customers. The particular ERP
software will generate the relevant costing report which will help to evaluate the true price of the
product that has been incurred in manufacturing it (Ruiz-Agundez, et. al., 2012).
It is required that these software’s will generate certain future oriented reports and
forecasts that will help to build a strategy to overcome the adverse situations that are been raised
over the period of time (Shim, et. al., 2012).
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Determine the system requirement
For effectively manage the company operating the Baker can make the use of the accounting
software which will help the company to identify the area where they could reduce the cost and
improve the quality of outcome. Generally, all the accounting software are same but there is
acertain feature which differentiates between them and the company on the basis of their feature
should make the choice of the software (Murthy and Abeysekera, 2015).The baker in order to
attain the objective of their IT investment requires certain feature in the new software which is as
follows-
Analysing and reporting – The Baker will require the analyzing and reporting feature in the
accounting software which provides the information to the management in the challenging
business environment in relation to the various aspect of the business (Foster, et. al., 2008). The
software should have robust reporting and analyzing technique to get the insight of the crucial
accounting activity and assist the company to comply with the government and industrial
regulation (O'Connell, et. al., 2015). Thus the software should assist the management to identify
the shortfall in the existing process to make the improvement in quality and reduce cost.
Graph and chart – The software should also provide the graph and chart it is the most powerful
tool to present the trend and the other concept which couldn’t be conveyed by the number alone.
They will also assist in directing the staff towards the goals which the company is planning to
achieve (Armbrust, et. al., 2010). Also, they provide the clear picture of the current state of the
company and make the future forecast on the basis of same.
Automatic update – The external environment of the business is continuously changing,
therefore, the software should have the feature to update as per the requirement of the condition
such as tax laws, regulation and financial practice which change over time (Ismail and King,
2014).
Customize – The Company requires the software which suits as per the existing structure of the
company and requires fewer changes in implementing the system. This will require less effort by
the management to implement the new system and get maximum benefit out of the same.
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Cloud back up – This the latest feature highly in a trend which helps in creating the backup of
the data which can be accessed from any place at any time. The software should have the feature
of sending and receiving the digital document and handle the electronic fund transfer (Buyya, et.
al., 2008). This will reduce the fixed expenditure of the company as the employee can work at
any place as per their connivance. Also, this feature will help to prevent the loss of data and easy
availability of the same from any location (Tijani and Mohammed, 2013).
Interoperability–The data which is recorded in the accounting software could be used by
various applications in HR, sales, logistic and another key segment of the business. So while
looking for the accounting software the company needs to ensure that whether they interoperate
with the other software to assist the company existing operation.
Scalability – The company is running the business with the objective that they will grow in the
near future thus at the time of making the choice of the accounting software the company needs
to ensure that the software is prosperous in the year ahead. The company should look for the
software that upgrades progressively with the number of users and increased amount of financial
transaction and data (Christauskas & Miseviciene, 2012).
Business expansion–The accounting software developer needs to add on certain module which
allows the customer to slap extra capability to its product and provide apath to full ERP
environment (Vakalfotis, et. al., 2013). The software should have added on feature which assists
the business to make the changes as per the increase in the growth of the business.
Security – The major concern at the time of making the choice of the accounting software is of
security as it records the confidential information in relation the business and the loss of the same
may hamper the company working. For example, the company records all the list of the debtor in
the accounting software the loss of the same will affect the profitability of the company. The
company needs to assess the built in security feature and the way it relatesto theon-site security
of the company (Daneshgar, et. al., 2013). The software should as for proper authentication
before use to prevent loss of data and manipulation in accounts.
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Software selection
The Bakery has earned the revenue of $13.5 million in the last year and employee around 70
employees thus can be categorized as a medium to large scale company. After visiting few of the
accounting sites such as SAP, XERO, Quickbooks, MYOB I have created understanding over the
few of the level of the accounting software.
Entry level accounting - this softwareis ideal for that organization which helps you an employee
and operates at the smaller level and is generally sole proprietor and micro Enterprise. These
organizationsrequire basic accounting function such as account payable and account receivable
and basic financial reporting required by the small Enterprises (Venkatraman and Fahd, 2016).
The cost of the software is pretty much slow and many of the vendors offer this package free of
cost oh for a limited time on a trial basis. In spite of the basic feature, many of the retailers uses
the software to add on to their existing build system (Scheer & Nüttgens, 2000).
Small to medium business accounting - The software apart from entry level products contain
acertain additional module for the other key aspects of the business operation such as inventory,
human resources, purchases and point of sale. At this level software perform more than just
financial function as is referred as enterprise resource planning solution (Trigo, et. al., 2014).
The software provides around 25 simultaneous users which are helpful for retail business which
is operating at a different level and needs to co-ordinate with each other to smoothly run the
business process. Also, thesystem facilitates generation of certain reports which has the
management to create understanding over the current working on the company (Bodnar &
Hopwood, 2001).
Enterprise accounting - The software is basically designed for the bigger organization as there
is too many transactions of the company. There are few of the similarities in the software in
comparison to those of small and medium business accounting but these features are more
advanced and robust (Marand, et. al., 2013). Also, the software offers anunlimited number of
simultaneous users as the business operates at the new location and needs to co-ordinate with
each other. The software has ahigher price and the requirement cannot meet by other Apps. Also,
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these software’s have advanced security features which prevent theft of organization data which
maybe you misuse by others.
Vendor selection
Comparison between the software
The company in order to acquire most helpful and productive Accounting software need to
compare the product available in the market, for instance, the overall score of the QuickBooks is
9.4 in comparison to that of Net Suite ERP score which is 9.1. By comparing the software you
can make the choice of the software which best suits the existing needs of your business (Troselj,
2013). For this, you need to identify which software matches with your need and review all the
possible accounting software based on the same.
Basis Net Suite QuickBooks
Current score The current score of the
software is 9.2.
The current score of the
software is 9.5.
Satisfaction of the client The vendor has delivered
quality service the result of
which is that 99% of the
customer are satisfied with the
software.
Have 96% of the customer
satisfaction which is little less
than QuickBooks.
Cost The cost of the software is
determined by Quote as per
the requirement of the
customer
The cost of the software is flat
$10.36
Payment schedule The usershave to pay monthly
for the software (Lacity and
The users are available with
the wide range of payment
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Reynolds, 2014). methods such as monthly, one
time and annual subscription.
General description The software is time tested
with general financial
management feature which
changes with the growing
business need and provides
real time visibility for better
decision making.
The software is pioneered with
the windows that look like the
real life forms and offers most
of the feature which business
needs (Chen, et. al., 2014).
Language supported The language supported by the
software are USA,UK,
Canada, Germany, Japan and
China
It supports USA, UK, Canada
and international
Supported integration  The software can
integrate with existing CRM
and investment in the Web
 Net Suite CRM
 Net Suite e-commerce
 Net Suite professional
service automation
 Third party solution
such as Birst, Epay, Bron to
etc.
 QuickBooks online
 QuickBooks premium
 QuickBooks enterprise
solution
 QuickBooks
accountant
 QuickBooks for Mac
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Types of software The vendor manufacture the
software for medium and large
enterprise
The vendor manufacture the
software for all small, medium
as well as large enterprise
Feature Accounting such as order-to-
cash, audit trail visibility,
procure to pay and
management of tax.
Assets management
Management of payment
Planning of the company
demand
Management of the inventory
(Chong, et. al., 2014).
Multiple attachment
Customize email template
Track sales
Track payment
Create estimate
Suitable Vendor for Bakers
After making a comparison between the software available in the market the company needs to
make the choice of the software which best suits with the existing structure of the company. As
per the current requirement of the business, Net Suite will be the best software for the company.
The following are the reason why the company can for Net Suite accounting software.
Unify the business process across the enterprise – The software facilitates the Baker to
automate the key business function across the department such as sales, marketing, finance,
purchasing employee management etc. Also, the company doesn’t have to re-enter the data in the
different system, wait for the batch update and rectify inconsistent and inaccurate data (Kachur
and Kleinsmith, 2013). It provides the employee to share the data on a real-time basis which
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increases collaboration among the different department and increase the productivity of the
company.
Better decision making – The Net Suite will customize the Dashboard and provide real time
access to a key performance metric, supporting intelligence and will assist the Baker to make a
timely decision in relation to the business. Also, the software will record the data of the customer
in more efficient and highly personalized sales, service process, and fulfillment.
Extends the process to supplier, customer and the partner – The Baker as per the
requirement of the business expansion needs to work closely with the partner through extended
enterprise. The Net Suite provides the feature which provides the self-service portal to enhance
B2B and B2C collaboration (Venkatraman and Fahd, 2016).The software provides a proactive
response of the partner and accelerates process cycle and improves responsiveness to ensure your
position as the preferred partner.
Customize the software with Suite Flex – The software is customization with the simple
industry standard tool which allows changing the business process to meet the requirement of the
industry and the company.
Get superior service with the affordable solution – The Baker is the middle size company
which cannot make much investment in the accounting software thus can go with the Net Suite
which provide comprehensive support package at the affordable price (Lacity and Reynolds,
2014). It eliminates the costly and the time-consuming integration and associate with the patch
of the disconnected system.
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Conclusion and recommendation
So from the above study, it is clear that the accounting software is the effective toll for recording
and processing business transaction. The Baker is the medium size organization so can make the
use of the accounting software for the purpose of business expansion. The software will help the
company in connecting their business process and provide analysis of the business operation and
transaction data for the decision-making process. The company if adopt the Net Suite and it will
assist in building coordination between the different department of the company thus improving
company operations. The new system will help the company in transforming meaningful
information that will provide easy access to business intelligence function. Also, it will help in
framing competitive strategy and understanding potential customer and better customer
relationship management.
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