Information Technology for Business: Accounting Software for SFG

This report focuses on selecting the appropriate accounting software for Specialty Fashion Group (SFG), an Australian retailer. It begins with an introduction to SFG, outlining its business, product range, and recent changes. The report then details SFG's key business processes, including quality control, cost negotiation, and finance/accounting. Key requirements for a new system are identified, followed by an evaluation of accounting software options, including ERP systems (like SAP) and Xero. The analysis considers factors like customization, security, customer relationship improvements, and vendor selection, ultimately aiming to provide a recommendation to enhance SFG's efficiency and success. The report emphasizes the importance of aligning software choices with SFG's specific needs and business operations.

Running head: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR BUSINESS
Information Technology for Business
[Name of the Student]
[Name of the University]
[Author note]

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Executive Summary:
The entire report is aimed at selection of an Australian organization for which an appropriate
Accounting software is to be suggested. Firstly the report introduces the organization and the
organization which has been selected is the Specialty Fashion Group. Followed by this the key
process of the organizations has been discussed in brief which along with including the quality
control of the products would also be associated with including the negotiations related to costs,
delivery in time, marketing and sales and the finance and accounting as well. After this the report
puts forwards the key requirements which is company is expecting after adaptation of the
system. Lastly the report discusses about the different accounting software for selecting the best
one so as to become efficient and successful.

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Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................3
Background:.....................................................................................................................................3
Business requirements:....................................................................................................................4
System Requirements:.....................................................................................................................6
Software selection:...........................................................................................................................7
ERP system:.................................................................................................................................7
Xero:............................................................................................................................................8
Vendor selection:.............................................................................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References:....................................................................................................................................11

3INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR BUSINESS
Introduction:
The entire report is aimed at selection of an Australian organization for which an
appropriate Accounting software is to be suggested. Besides this the report is also associated
with discussing about the choice of the accounting software. Firstly a brief introduction of the
organization is provided and the organization which has been selected is the Specialty Fashion
Group (Laudon and Laudon 2016). The detailed description would be consisting of the
information related to the range of products, the customer base and the changes which are
significant as well as recent along with discussing about the financial performance. This in turn
would be associated with leading to further discussion of the appropriate system that is to be
used by the organization. Followed by this the organizations key business processes would be
discussed in brief which along with including the quality control of the products would also be
associated with including the negotiations related to costs, delivery in time, marketing and sales
and the finance and accounting as well. Followed by this the report also puts forwards of the key
requirements which is company is expecting after adaptation of the system. Lastly the report
discusses about the different accounting software for selecting the best one.
Background:
The organization Specialty Fashion Group is an Australian based retailer company which
is having almost around 200 stores located all around the entire world. This organization has
started to develop as an internally recognized brand which is entirely dedicated towards leading a
world of curves through fearless fashion trends. The head office of this organization is situated in
Sydney and is having around 100 employees who are associated with supporting the retail stores.
Previously the organization had six brands under its name however now only the City Chic has

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remained unchanged and the reason is in the year of 2018 in the Month of May Noni B Group
have been associated with buying the other five brands by paying an amount of $32 million. The
organization had been only associated with the retention of only its strongest brand City Chic.
Despite of the downsizing of the organization, SFG is still considered to be one of the large sized
organization existing in the country of Australia.
Considering the business activities, SFG is seen to be associated with making a lot of
benefits mainly by means of selling the footwear, menswear and the womenswear. Despite of
this womenswear is considered to be the leading category which is associated with generating the
highest amount of sales for the business (Alles et al. 201). In addition to this for the purpose of
improving the sales the company is seen to be associated with conducting of an in-depth analysis
upon the preferences of the customers and is associated with eth introduction of the large trail
sizing so as to meet the requirements in a better way.
Business requirements:
As discussed earlier the organization SFG is a retailer associated with the designing of
the products and is associated with placing orders in factories situated in India, Thailand and
China. From this it can be stated that the key business process is associated with in including
quality control of the products, negotiation of cost along with on time delivery associated with
the sales and marketing and finance and accounting.
Firstly, after finalization of the product development the manufacturer is associated with
the sending of the shipping samples so as to determine if it is meeting the requirements of the
organization or not (ur Muehlen and Shapiro 2015). The production of the placed order would
begin as soon as the approval is received. Despite of all this it is noticed that the final products

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might not always be present in a line with the shipping samples and there might exist faulty
issues which would in turn be associated with effecting the sales of the product. For responding
to this the production team should be necessarily be associated with taking follow ups of the
production process along with maintaining quality control so as to make sure of the fact that the
products which are received at the stores are of high quality and can be sold to the customers
(Brandon 2016). The outcome which is required is associated with including a pre-alert in the
software which is used by the company for not paying the factories unless and until the quality
control gets satisfied.
In addition to this the cost negotiation is also associated with playing a very vital role in
the key business processes of the organization SFG. For those retailers who are not having a
factory is seen to be having a very little control over the manufacturing process. So from this it
can be stated that the costs of the sold goods are not under control and this in turn would be
turning out to making the organization operate associated with losses (Vom Brocke and
Mendling 2018). This in turn is associated with putting forward of the need that the outcome
have to negotiate with the best terms and prices of the products along with asking of discounts
when large quantity is purchased. Along with all this there is also an additional need of keeping a
track of the cost every year.
The accounting and the finance are also to be supervised which means the accounting
department has to associate itself in taking the responsibility of keeping the cost under control so
as to ensure enough earning for leading the other operations (Libby 2017). The organization
should necessarily be associated with following the procedures of the company so as to pay the
invoices that are issues by the suppliers and would be needing to chase so as to obtain additional
discounts in case of any kind of delay in the delivery.

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System Requirements:
The software which is to be selected should necessarily have the customization feature in
order to keep up with the changes in needs of the business. The organization has been seen to
have gone through a significant number of changes in last few years and it is entirely
unpredictable if there would be any kind of further changes (Collier 2015). For this reason any
kind of change in entity there is a need of updating the in a timely manner so as to help in
addressing the new business processes. An accounting software is to be chosen where no lag
would be existing so as to eliminate any kind of negative impacts. So the software to be selected
should be flexible and should have the capability of growing.
Another major feature is the security and it is important because the accounting software
is associated with handling different kind of account related data. All this data might be sensitive
as well as key data which the organization is having and would be liking to keep all this
confidential and would only be available to be authentic users (Gelinas et al. 2017). For this
reason there is a need of building internal security structure which would be associated with
determining the ones who would be having access to the sensitive data.
Along with all the software which is to be selected should have the capability of
improving the relationship that is seen to be existing with the customers. In general it is
considered that the accounting software are having a very little to do with the customers,
however this might be seen to be closely associated with one another. Which means the enquires
of the customers along with their feedbacks can be addressed properly when the information is
communicated in a proper way by means of receiving assistance from the system.

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Software selection:
ERP system:
ERP software or the Enterprise Resource Planning Software are considered to be high-
end accounting software. SAP is considered to be enterprise planning system that is used for the
integration of the information related to accounts with the processes by means of setting up of
centralized database (Trigo, Belfo and Estébanez 2016). The sharing of the information and data
to the users having authority to access the data is done by the database and is seen to be effective
in facilitating the exchange of information and communication across different departments. The
usage of SAP makes the processes automated as well as streamlined helping in saving costs.
The ERP is also associated with supporting mobile usage and controlling remotely which
in turn eliminates the need of sitting in office so as to provide update. This feature makes SAP
appropriate for SFG as a part of a team needs to travel in different places so as to conduct the
business on a regular basis. SAP is also appropriate for the organization because it a large sized
organization consisting of huge database (Yahya et al. 2018). For example if a manager needs to
provide detail to an enquiry made by a customer then the manager just check the SAP so as to
answer the customer.
Besides this the limitations of the SAP also needs to be considered. There exists no
guarantee that the system would be operation in a proper way which might lead to service
failures (Drum, Pernsteiner and Revak 2017). The ERP implementation requires huge investment
which might be putting a pressure upon SFG.

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Xero:
Xero is a widely used software of Australia which is seen to have been adopted by small
organizations of various industries. This is user friendly software and can eb used easily without
requiring the user to necessarily belong to accounting background. The software is associate with
simplification of different accounting concepts and this in turn makes easy for small business to
make accounting entries without requiring a professional (Heinzelmann 2017). This in turn
eliminates the need of extensive training helping firms in saving resources. So from this it can be
stated that the usage of this software would not be as advantageous as expected by the SFG
requirements.
Additionally the software is associated enabling of transactions to be feed directly from
the bank helping in showing the bank balance in real-time helping business owners in tracking
the cash inflow and the outflow preventing financial distress which are potential, it is also
possible to scan and upload documents into xero making the process go paperless (Redpath and
Gourdie 2017). In SFG the bank conciliations are seen to be more complicated than the bank
transfers so there is a need of more advanced recording and the existence of many suppliers
along with the information can turn out to be a mess if not recorded separately. This are the
reasons which makes Xero not appropriate for the organization SFG.
Vendor selection:
From the above analysis it can be stated that before implementation of the ERP several
factors needs to be considered and it must be made sure that the process of selection is associated
with providing of evidence of the due diligence (Flaherty 2017). Besides the huge spending the
system in order to function properly might be associated with taking a long time along with

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service failures and increased cost of ownership. So the of selecting vendor needs to be evaluated
properly.
In addition to the provided requirements and the features the SAP as well as the Epicor
can make sure that they are meeting eth demands related to data security on a regular basis. This
would be helping in elimination of the risks faced because of the external parties. Inventory
management is one of the key needs of SFG and the usage of the Epicor is seen to be more
advantages because it is having an advantage over the SAP by having a separate section for the
allocation and replenishment and because of having an established pre-determined model so as to
have a more effective allocation (Young and France 2017). Additionally the allocators are
enables with the feature of manipulating the models so as to satisfy the needs. Epicor is having
another strength of better maintaining the customer relations. The Epicor CRM is associated with
helping in effective customer management throughout the entire customer lifecycle.
SAP is linked to Microsoft suite and thus it is easy for the organization to work on
Microsoft Excel and Word and aids in uploading the documents into SAP. The upgrading is
required as it is difficult to convert the files to CSV version in Epicor (Manisha and Bosman
2018). Forecasting without the support of advanced version of SAP is difficult. In order to
predict, accurate reports needs to be referred and thus SAP helps in providing real-time reports
on finance.
Conclusion
The report focuses on conducting in-depth analysis based on the features of the
system or the different functionality of the accounting software. The software on accounting that
can be availed in the market has three categories namely; low, medium and high-end. The report

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has considered an Australian based company named Specialty Fashion Group to analyze the
accounting software that is more effective for the operations of this firm. Lastly, after discussing
on the features of the software packages, Epicor is found to be more appropriate for the firm.

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References:
Alles, M., Brennan, G., Kogan, A. and Vasarhelyi, M.A., 2018. Continuous monitoring of
business process controls: A pilot implementation of a continuous auditing system at Siemens.
In Continuous Auditing: Theory and Application(pp. 219-246). Emerald Publishing Limited.
Brandon, D., 2016. The blockchain: The future of business information systems. International
Journal of the Academic Business World, 10(2), pp.33-40.
Collier, P.M., 2015. Accounting for managers: Interpreting accounting information for decision
making. John Wiley & Sons.
Drum, D., Pernsteiner, A. and Revak, A., 2017. Workarounds in an SAP environment: impacts
on accounting information quality. Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change, 13(1),
pp.44-64.
Flaherty, S., 2017. Bookkeeping in the Cloud: Advancements in Accounting Software (Doctoral
dissertation, Appalachian State University).
Gelinas, U.J., Dull, R.B., Wheeler, P. and Hill, M.C., 2017. Accounting Information Systems.
Cengage Learning.
Heinrich, R., Merkle, P., Henss, J. and Paech, B., 2017. Integrating business process simulation
and information system simulation for performance prediction. Software & Systems
Modeling, 16(1), pp.257-277.
Heinzelmann, R., 2017. Accounting logics as a challenge for ERP system implementation: A
field study of SAP. Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change, 13(2), pp.162-187.