AIS 17 Report: Evaluating ERP Software for B Bakery's Business Needs

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Accounting Information System (AIS) for B Bakery, focusing on the implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. It begins by defining business processes within a bakery, including the roles of bakers and the operational aspects of B Bakery, which supplies products to supermarkets. The report then develops the business requirements, emphasizing the importance of indispensable processes such as supply chain management, production, procurement, and human resource management, alongside financial record-keeping. It outlines the required outcomes from these processes to achieve business objectives, such as maximizing profits, increasing brand visibility, and ensuring product freshness. The report then delves into determining the system requirements for B Bakery, highlighting the limitations of generic ERP applications and emphasizing the need for a process-oriented ERP system that can handle specific needs like tracking ingredients, managing product variations, and integrating various technologies. The report also addresses the challenges of using a generic ERP application and details essential functional capabilities, data model characteristics, and required technologies. The report concludes by discussing software and vendor selection, aiming to guide B Bakery in choosing the most suitable ERP solution to streamline operations, improve efficiency, and achieve its business goals.

AIS 1
Accounting Information System

AIS 2
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
1. Define Business processes...........................................................................................................4
2. Develop Business Requirements.................................................................................................6
3. Determination of System Requirements for B Bakery................................................................9
4 Software Selections....................................................................................................................12
5. Vendor Selection.......................................................................................................................13
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................17
References......................................................................................................................................18

AIS 3
Introduction
In the present globalized and dynamic business world, ERP software plays an important role in
supporting and managing the business activities. ERP helps in increasing the productivity and
efficiency of every business operating in any industry. In this view, this report aims at
discussing the importance of ERP software systems through a case study in which in B Bakery
organization has to implement ERP system for taking the business to the next level. The report
will illustrate the business organization, and determine the system requirements accordingly.
This report also compares and contrasts the features and functionalities of two accounting
software adopted by another vendor. Specifically, the report will also explain how the business
results will be affected by the implementation of the ERP in the long run.

AIS 4
1. Define Business processes
a) A professional who is engaged in the business of manufacturing and preparing pastries and
breads for the purpose of serving the peoples at their favourite places like grocery stores and
restaurants is known as bakers. Their main task is concerned with mixing ingredients and
considering recipes in order to prepare baked foods. They existed in the two forms. Initial form is
of commercial baker who is engaged in the business of commercial baking and second form is of
retail bakers engaged in bakeshops and grocery stores (Hecker, et al., 2013). Baking in large
quantities and strictly following the pre defined recipes constitutes the basic difference between
these two forms.
Inspecting the ingredients that are available for the recipes that they have to produce constitutes
the functioning for whole day of baker. Ensuring the freshness of ingredients like cupcakes,
breads and pies is also constitutes the main operation of a baker. Kneading, rolling and moulding
the shape of dough and cutting them in the desired shape are also a function of baker.
Business process of a bakery
B Bakery is a bakery company that is engaged in the business of selling products to
supermarkets. These businesses have customers in the form of customer base mixed with the
prominent businesses. They engaged in the production of bakery products and then supply them
to another groceries shops and businesses.
Various production units like supply chain management, sales and marketing department,
accounts, HR management process and finance constitute the business of bakery. Taking care of
purchasing of raw materials from different business units like suppliers of fruit, poultry farms

AIS 5
and fruit shops is managed by the department of supply chain management. Then, bakery
products are produced in the production department. Then, warehousing the products and then
supplying them to different targeted locations is carried by the department of inventory and
logistics management. Managing the activities relating to accounting, making payments to
suppliers and from customers and managing the payrolls of the staff is done by the accounts
department (Mendez, et al., 2014). Taking care of hiring and payrolls is attended by the HR
management. Sales department is engaged in the business of taking orders and selling the
products to the targeted market. Business is promoted by the department of marketing. Every
department of the business has dependency on other department. Whole functioning of the
business gets hampered by affecting any of the department. For example, if the firm is suffering
from sales decline, then business will generate less revenue and HR management has to suffer.
Therefore, for running a business unit of bakery effectively, it is very much essential to taking
care of every unit of business with outmost care. The organisation is also requires to develop an
effective level of cooperation between departments of the organisation. Little bit of similarity can
be seen in the functioning of a bakery and operations of a baker.

AIS 6
2. Develop Business Requirements
b) Indispensable processes to be performed
There are several sets of activities that are performed in the bakery business; mentioned activities
in the above section are indispensable. The several activities performed such as supply chain
management, productions, procurement and managing the human resources with maintaining
accounts of the business. Doing business is not the important part but maintaining the records of
the activities performed in monetary terms is also the vital need of the organisation to perform as
a competitive player in the market. B Bakers has grown smoothly in past few years but has faced
problems of competitive prices with some of the products so it is required to plan for the
betterment of the products to compete in the market (Gartenstein, 2017). The important
processes that are to be included in the business of the bakery and confectionary are to have
production at most competitive prices so that it can compete with the competitors.
Company need to procure the raw material such as the floor, sweets, baking raw material, ovens
and other basic product from cheaper and quality provider supplier so that they can have price
advantage against the competitors, the next requirement is to pack the various products and then
supply them to the various sellers and warehouse. There is also a need to know about the
competitors manufacturing process so that some of the lacking areas can also be sorted with
taking that information into consideration (Kotler, et al., 2016). Accounting process is also
having unbeaten role in the performance of a firm it records the financial details from material,
packaging, warehouse, transport to income from sales it also helps to show the results of the
business in different periods as required by the management. The lacking of the

AIS 7
accounting/accountant is that it lacks decision making and forecasting of the market demand and
the quick decisions about various problems in front of the organisation.
Accounting also helps to know about the money to be paid to the staff, labour and the amount of
taxation which helps to plan for the future needs of the manpower and to decide the investment
plan for the surplus funds with the organisations.
c) Required outcomes from these processes to achieve business objectives
There is a need to have incorporating business processed with the use of new technology driven
solution which help not only in accounting but have solutions of the problems of all the
departments related to bakery business. This will also result to speed up the whole process so
that the human resource team has to focus on their key areas of performance which will also
improve their efficiency this will also result to improvement of competitiveness in the market.
Accounting is the only process which is connected with all the departments of the business
(Hecker, et al., 2013). The information collected from each department is than entered to
calculate the cost incurred in various these process and then decision about the need to cut off in
the needed expenses.
The basic objectives of the business is to achieve maximum profits by inputting minimum
resources with efficiency and effectiveness but at the present time there is high level of
competition in every sector. So there is a need for the solution which will help the business in
planning with the available resources to find out the needed output. Revenue is the first priority
of a business it can be achieved with the help of increases advertisements to grow as a brand in
the field of bakery products. Margins are the keys to increase profits of the business so producing
the exact amount with maximum margins is the priority (Simkin, et al., 2014). Products produced

AIS 8
are having short life so these products are needed to be delivered with freshness. This will also
result to build reputation over short period of time.
Integrating accounting software programs will solve the several needs to achieve the desired
objectives (Rainer, et al., 2013). Enterprise resource planning, SAP, MYOB are several
Information systems which are solution to the manual calculations and problems related to
payroll and human resource management. Some of them are also having planning and decision
making tools which helps to achieve the desired objectives and plans.

AIS 9
3. Determination of System Requirements for B Bakery
It has been observed that any of the ERP applications support the needs of accounting, but when
it comes to the areas of purchase, stock, production, and sales, they fail to fulfil the requirements
of a bakery organization. This is because a lot many standard ERP applications are general,
broad-based applications which maintain detached production rather than food manufacturing,
such as bakeries. The basic architecture and practical capabilities of a process-oriented ERP
application are greatly diverse than a basic, broad-based or discrete-oriented ERP application. At
present, many sellers dealing with distinct ERP applications claim to be able to shore up food
manufacturing needs (Phan, 2016). However, in many cases they proved to be wrong. In order to
become successful, B Bakery requires using ERP tools which can efficiently evaluate whether
any application can tackle the important areas which support the exclusive requirements for B
bakery in the most efficient, as well as effective way. The baker owner should make the
distinction to implement best practices for the organization and convert them into valuable
solutions, without individual coding, and without making additional steps in the process that
could slow the organization down on an everyday basis. The owner should look for a fast
implementation without exceptional add-ons. Since all process-oriented ERP applications cannot
be not equal for the organization, due diligence should be made when going under the covers of
each ERP application (Stoean, 2015). Simply because a package supports food manufacturing
doesn’t mean it will support the requirements for the organization.
The owner of B Bakery should examine these areas in terms of vital ERP functional capabilities,
data model characteristics, and needed technologies, including the following:

AIS 10
• The stock, accountability, and management of frequently used raw materials such as flour,
yeast, eggs, as well as spices, seeds and sugar along with a variety of finished products
• The ability to track and trace ingredients and possible allergens to support requirements of the
USDA, FDA, GFSI, and customers in mock recalls and product recalls
• The ability to forecast yields, accurately cost products and scale manufacture
• The consequences of variable product features and inventory attributes, such as package
weights, expiry dates, and numerous units of measure, on a range of ERP functions, particularly
inventory management, production scheduling, order management, manufacturing, product
management, and Quality Control management
• The impact of the ERP design and plan on the application’s operations and its requisite IT
maintenance
• The need to integrate different technologies for improving visibility, teamwork and process
interoperability
If B Bakery chooses to make use of a generic or discreet-oriented ERP application for producing
one or more finished products, based on BOMs, the organization will face problem in following
areas:
 Monitoring manifold products from one bread starter
 Monitoring toppings such as frosting or seeds that may consume more quantity
 Supervising recipes that include regrind from finished goods
 Cheeking inventory for net weight with double units of measure and inventory quantities,
such as, cases, packages, or units

AIS 11
 Estimating ‘available to promise’ and ‘capable to promise’ data for products with respect
to co-products and by-products
 Scaling manufacturing yields up or down based on components levels or product yield
levels
 Monitor and highlight from supplier receipts to customer shipments
 Proper tracking and assessment of co-products and by-products
 Using proper product costing method and comparing of standard or estimated cost with
the actual cost
 Tracking of actual output and comparing with the standard one
 Surplus stock transactions from not having streamlined the use of process descriptions to
relate recipes
 Determination of actual quality test outcomes and comparison to description
 Speedy entry of data into the computer with the formatted screen and built in database so
as to carry out inventory records and supplier details more efficiently than manually.
 Automatic documentation of credit notes, invoices, printing statements, and purchase
orders.
 Accurate entry of data for every transaction
 Automatically updating of accounting records such as customer records, supplier records
 Instant availability of data when required at different locations at the same time

AIS 12
4 Software Selections
b) As per the research conducted in order to evaluating the suitability of accounting software in
the organisation, it can be said that the opting for the MYOB can be the most advantageous for
the firm. MYOB stands for Mind Your Own Business is a multination corporation of Australia
that is engaged in the business of providing services related to taxation and accounting aspects to
the firms operating on small and medium scale (Curtis, 2015). There are several advantages that
the firm can enjoy by employing MYOB in maintaining the accounts of the firm. The firm has
ability of handling all the problems relating to bookkeeping in an efficient manner. When a firm
hires MYOB for handling its accounting transactions, then the firm is not require searching for
any other option.
The software of the company is effective in handling the problems of any kind relating to the
accounting section of the firm. The firm is also capable of managing the system of pay roll in an
efficient manner. It is very essential for any of the firm to have those programs that helps in
accounting procedures and bookkeeping in order to calculate the salary and wages of the
employees. If this has done by using the manual procedure, then it requires minimum period of
two to three days. On the other hand, using the software of MYOB, it can be done in a very
simple manner at very least cost and in minimum time (Mayasari, 2015). This aids the positive
reputation and appeal to the business. Calculating of taxes and government dues are also
performed by this firm. This will help in paying the appropriate amount of tax to the government.
MYOB follows the system of double entry in balance sheet which helps in maintaining the
accuracy and reliability on the financial statements.