AIS/ERP Selection for B Bakery

This report analyzes the accounting software selection process undertaken by B Bakery, a family-owned business supplying bread and confectionery products. Facing challenges in managing its growing operations due to limitations in its accounting department, B Bakery sought a new accounting information system (AIS) or enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. The report outlines the business processes, develops specific requirements for the software, and details the evaluation of various accounting software options from vendors like XERO, MYOB, QuickBooks, and NetSuite. A comparative analysis of Sage 300 ERP and QuickBooks Enterprise is presented, considering factors such as pricing, features, user satisfaction, and suitability for a medium-sized enterprise. The report concludes by recommending QuickBooks Enterprise as the most suitable option for B Bakery due to its customizability, user-friendliness, and comprehensive features that address the company's specific needs, including automated reporting and tax management.

The process of selecting the AIS/ERP to
make the informed decision for investment in
accounting software
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Table of Contents
Executive summary.........................................................................................................................3
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Define business process...................................................................................................................5
Develop business requirement.........................................................................................................5
Process to be performed...................................................................................................................5
Outcome of the process...................................................................................................................6
Determine the system requirement..................................................................................................7
Software selection............................................................................................................................9
Vendor selection............................................................................................................................10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................13
References......................................................................................................................................14
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Executive summary
With the evolvement of the technology, the use of accounting software has increased rather than
using the manual system of recording as it facilitates quick recording and processing of the
business transaction. In the report, we will conduct the study over the process adopted by the B
Bakery for selection the AIS/ERP for the purpose of making an informed decision in relation to
the business. The B Bakery supplies the Bread and the confectionary product to the number of
different business but has lost many of the key customers due to the inability of producing the
goods at the competitive price. The report will create the understanding of the current process
which is adopted by the company to conduct its business. Based on the current process of the
business the Bakery will make the choice of the product which best suits with the existing
functionality of the company. For this, the Bakery will move to some of the websites which are
selling accounting software and make the comparison among the same. After that, the company
needs to evaluate the benefit of the different software and choose the product as per the current
requirement of the business. The report will also provide us understanding the way software will
improve the current process of the company.
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Introduction
There are many companies in Australia which are making the use of the accounting software to
record and process the business transaction. This software integrates the many functions of the
business for conducting the business process smoothly. In the report the process of selecting of
the accounting software by the Bakery has been discussed and the way it will help in improving
the current process of the business. The report makes the comparison between the different
software from different website to meet out the current need of the Bakery.
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Define business process
The B Bakery is the family owned business and engaged in the business over the past 50 years
and supplies Bread and confectionary product to the number of different business including
supply and food chain. The firm in the past few year has experienced growth in some of the new
product range thus felt the requirement of new software to take the business to next level. The
current business process of the B Bakery requires the use of certain units such as production,
sales, marketing, HR and accounting and finance which coordinate with each other to deliver
product and service to the customer. The Supply chain management unit ensures that the
production unit is available with the right resources at the right place and right time. The unit
also manages the inventory and ensures that the goods and service are delivered to the customer
at the right place and right time (Grabski, et. al., 2011). The production unit ensures the goods
are prepared as per the requirement of the top level management and makes effort to minimize
the wastage of the resources.
The account and finance department of the business will manage the financial resources and
records all the key financial transaction of the business. The unit records the transaction as per
the regulation set by the government and preparation of books of accounts as per the guidelines
provided by the regulating authority. The unit also provides the information to different
stakeholder to make informed decision in relation to the business. The human resource
department of the company makes the arrangement of the human resources to effectively
conduct the production and other function of the business (Saracina, 2012). They also fulfill the
relevant regulation in relation to the human resources and handle the issue which they face at the
time of working.
The marketing unit of the company is working to communicate with the customer the benefit
which the company is offering through its product and service. The unit is working in
coordination with the other unit of the business to deliver a quality product to the customer
(Malinić, et. al., 2010). The each of the unit of the Bakery is dependent upon each other and
needs to work by coordinating to attain the business goals and objective. If any of the units fails
it will affect the overall outcome of the company thus the management needs to equally
emphasize over each of the units to attain the growth in the market.
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In the current situation, the B Bakery is facing the issue with the accounting department which
thus fails to manage the existing operation. Therefore the company is planning to acquire new
accounting system to effectively manage the growing business expansion. The company is
planning to include the certain feature in the accounting system which will assist the
management in making a key decision in relation to the business.
Develop business requirement
Process to be performed
The each of the process is important but the B Bakery is lacking in accounting and finance
department of the business is lacking. The company has shown the tremendous growth in the
product in the past few years but due to certain issue in the accounting department is facing
difficulty in managing current business operation (Dameri, et. al., 2013). The company has
acquired the accounting expert for bookkeeping but the department doesn’t provide the
information to the management to make a key decision in relation to the business. Due to the
same the company has failed to offer the product to the customer at the competitive price which
creates impact over the company current market. The management of the B Bakery will require
certain reports from the accounting system which generate some report to assist the management
in making the key decision in relation to the business (Shields & Shelleman, 2011). The
information will assist the management in making a strategic decision which will help the
company to grow its business.
The company in order to meet out the current business need is planning to acquire the new
accounting software with the few of the requirement. The company requires that the software
assist them in quickly recording and processing information and easy availability of the
information. The company also requires that the software should integrate the business process
for better decision making. The company also wants that the new software fits with the existing
structure of the organization and doesn’t require much change in the organization structure.
Outcome of the process
The B Bakery wants certain outcome from the process which helps the company in attaining
better performance in the market by working with a certain key aspect of the business. The
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company requires the software which makes data entry quicker and the database of the customer
supplier and detail are recorded in the effective way (Schiff & Szendi, 2014). The company
requires that the software automatically production of the reports and document such as invoices,
purchase order, credit note, printing statement, profitability report etc.
The company also needs to check that the software provides the accurate information and there is
no issue in processing the information. The transactions recorded by the company should be
automatically updated to provide the updated information to the users of the software. Also, the
software should automatically create the backup of the software over the cloud which makes the
instant availability of the information to the different user's operation at the different location at
the same time.
The company requires that the software produces a certain report which will help the
management to monitor and control the business such as aged debtor analyze, trading, profit and
loss and balance sheet of the company. Also, the software should facilitate automatic creation of
the GST/VAT return and the printed information to avoid the error caused by the poor figure
(Pulakanam & Suraweera, 2010). The software should also assist the company to identify the
area where the company lacks to improve the outcome of the business. Also, it will require
training the staff to the new skill which can make them feel motivated and less critical to the
business operation.
The software will also reduce the outcome of the staff timing doing the accounting and reduce
the accounting and auditing expenses which will benefit the company in the long run. Also, the
software will reduce the frustration of the management as they divert there focus over the key
area of the business. The software will also integrate the business process and the system used
for the business process which will help the company in earning more revenue (Pfeifer, et. al.,
2017).
Determine the system requirement
There are several accounting features that B Bakery can adopt to achieve their IT requirements.
However the best accounting software should necessarily have these features which are as
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follows:
Flexible setup: As the business grows, the operations of the organization become more complex
and compound in nature. Supplier of software should be willing to completely customize B
Bakery system on their needs. B Bakery should mandatorily discuss how the IT system handles
complex business situations, divisions and sites of their business (Woodard, et. al., 2013). They
should also focus on discussing the matters like how the software will help in business future
growth and expansion.
Comparability: Accounting software to be known as good, should have a better-known feature
of easy to access reports which can be easily accessible and are comparable across different parts
of the B Bakery to analyze and identify the trends. For the comparable feature, the accounting
report must have the same measurement unit, belongs to a particular period and also have a
common format for making accounting reports (Davidson, et. al., 2010). Comparability is an
essential feature of any accounting IT software. For the final analysis, the reports should be in a
format of comparing them with the other year reports of B Bakery.
Relevance: Any information which influences the decisions of business should be regarded as
relevant information. The information must be available on time and having a considerable and
enough detailed level of showing diverse trends and comparisons between different units of
business and different years that encourages or motivates to level up in the business (Winch,
2014). Relevant information can be used only if it should be provided on time without any error
so the accounting software should be in a state in which it should provide error free reports to B
Bakery.
Integration with other systems: Business units having medium sized operations may be using
dozens of systems in the organizations which may be of downgraded technology to the limit that
amalgamating their data with the other system is not that easy task which can easily take less
time on the upgraded systems. While choosing a provider B Bakery should find the answers to
these questions, else they may regret in the future for their decisions.
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Tensile access levels: B Bakery should remember about the security of their significant and
relevant information. For this feature, B Bakery should understand that negligence of employee
leads to the high level of data breaches. The access level of the new IT system should be flexible
with the staff, employees and other managerial individuals. Unlike other business software’s that
are having a very rigid access and security levels like ‘administrator’ and ‘guest’. B Bakery
should choose software that allows more flexibility to the employees and staff of the
organization like access through number range like 0-100. This approach will allow B Bakery to
differentiate the level and stage of employees with more accuracy something which is very
beneficial if they are working with any temporary employee or any intern (Opera II, et. al.,
2011).
Easy to understand: The IT software should be easily understandable by the employees and the
staff of B Bakery. The more guess work includes in work the more, the more vulnerable B
Bakery is to error. B Bakery should understand the fact that the accounting software should be
easy to understand and has a user-friendly nature so that it has a chance to being implemented in
the organization with its full capacity.
Ability to handle massive user volumes: It is a difficult task to handle a large no. of user’s
volume for the systems accessing same software. Many software providers restrict the no. of
registered users of software on the other hand if more than a no. of handful users trying to get
access to the system would result in the slowdown of the IT system. B Bakery is having a good
no. of staff which in term reflects the same problem; B Bakery should definitely approach the
software provider about the maximum no. of users that can realistically enter the software
concurrently before the system smashes to stop (AccountsIQ, et. al., 2011).
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Software selection
There is a wide range of accounting software available in the market thus the management of B
Bakery should make the choice of the accounting software as per the current size and level of
operation. The B Bakery is the medium size enterprise thus requires limited feature in the
accounting software to effectively manage the business process. The management of the
company has visited many of the sites such as XERO, MYOB, QuickBooks, and NetSuite etc., to
find the software as per the current requirement of the business.
Entry level accounting – There are many of the company which is operating at the smaller level
such as sole proprietorship and Micro enterprise and requires the software for recording the
general accounting information. These organizations require basic accounting function and are
easily available over the internet free of cost or at the nominal amount. The many of the retailer
uses the software to add coordinate with the existing build in the system.
Small to medium level enterprise – The B Bakery is the medium size enterprise which requires
certain additional feature apart from the basic level of accounting. The company demand
generation of the certain report apart from the basic accounting function which assists the
management in making a key decision in relation to the business (Trigo, et. al., 2014). At this
level, the software performs certain additional function apart from the basic level of accounting
as there are many of the users simultaneously working over the software to conduct the business
in an effective way. The software also generates a certain report which provides a competitive
advantage by differentiating company service from its competitor.
Enterprise accounting – These organization are big in size and but the software for this
enterprise are advanced and robust as the organization has too many transactions. The software is
pretty much similar to those of small and medium enterprise and offers an unlimited number of
simultaneous users and integrates the different function of the business (Nagel & Otterbein,
2015). The software has advanced security feature and is costly in comparison to the basic
software.
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Vendor selection
The management of the B Bakery needs to make the comparison of the feature of the different
software and make the choice of the software which fulfills the existing requirement of the
company. The management needs to make the comparison between the various accounting and
fiancé product to identify the top application as per the specific need of the organization. The
current rating of the Sage 300 ERP is 9.3, on the other hand, the QuickBooks enterprise has the
score of 9.4. The Sage 300 ERP earned 100% for the user’s satisfaction whereas QuickBooks
entries earned 95%.
Basis Sage 300 ERP QuickBooks enterprise
General
information
The software is to help the small
and mid-sized business to manage
their resource in an effective way
through the use of the employee
resource planning program.
It is the smart software for small size
business enterprise to outgrow the entry
level accounting program with the
familiarity of the signature
QuickBooks.
Pricing model Monthly payment, Quoted
payment
Monthly payment and annual
subscription
Type of the
customer
Small business and medium size
enterprise (Opera II, et. al., 2011).
Small business and medium size
enterprise
a feature of the
software
Accounting and finance
Business intelligence and reporting
Inventory management and
warehousing
Reporting and finances
Sales and customer management
Payroll and employees
Advance inventory management
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Manufacturing
Purchasing and supplier
management
Sales and customer management
Advance pricing strategy
Field service management
Purchasing & vendor
User satisfaction The company has created behavior
based customer satisfaction
algorithm and gather the customer
review across the wide range of
social media sites.
The company has 171 positive social
mention and 8 negative responses
which are presented in easy to digest
form showing how the people
responded to the software (Schiff &
Szendi, 2014).
Overview of the
software
The Sage 300 is the easy to use
and comprehensive enterprise
planning system and allows the
companies to make the use of the
function as per their current need
(Winch, et. al., 2014).
The price of the software is
adjustable as per the feature used
as per the current business
requirement.
The product is stable and easily
customized And allows the system
to records the budget in all the
records.
The software provides the choice
The software has the income tracker
feature which helps the management to
view the transaction in relation to the
income.
The software also assists in recording
the transaction from multiple bank
accounts at one place (Machera &
Machera, 2017).
It also combines report from multiple
company files and creates the
professional financial statement.
Also, it facilitates the export of the data
to a new file to create the custom
report.
It also helps in better management of
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