Comprehensive Literature Review: Accounting Software for Bing Lee

This literature review examines the implementation and impact of accounting software, specifically Xero, within the retail company Bing Lee. The review begins with an introduction to accounting software and its significance for businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), highlighting its role in maintaining financial statements, improving efficiency, and aiding decision-making. The main body of the review explores Bing Lee's organizational structure, including its top, middle, and supervisory management levels, and the functions of key departments such as human resources and finance. It then analyzes different types of accounting software, including commercial, custom, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, as well as spreadsheet-based solutions. The review also discusses the use of flowcharts in sales processes and potential issues related to organizational structure and communication. Part 2 focuses on the benefits of using accounting software, with a specific examination of Xero, including its features, market size, and competitive landscape. The review also considers alternative software options and factors affecting the success of accounting software in the market. The conclusion summarizes the findings and implications of the literature review.

Literature Review

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
PART 1.......................................................................................................................................1
PART 2.......................................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERNECES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
In today's world, most of the companies are using accounting software to maintain and
manage their financial statements. These software work on real time basis. By this, it is easy to
make decisions. Generally, it is used by small and medium sized businesses as they are not able
to develop a separate department for this. Besides this, using this provides efficient data in right
manner and right time (Jones and Jones 2016). Usually, software are used by companies to
increase their working efficiency. It helps in keeping the records so that fraud can be found out.
Also, auditing helps in measuring performance of each department. By this, further plans are
developed to improve them. In this Bing lee is organisation that is taken. It is a medium sized
organisation that is operating in retail sector and deals in consumer electronic goods.
MAIN BODY
PART 1
The current organisational structure of bing lee is:-
It is having CEO who is at the top management, then comes General Manager at middle
level management. After that, supervisors are there who control activities and at last, employees
are there.

Bing Lee is a medium sized enterprise that is having a different level in it. They are as
follows:-
Top level management- Bing Lee is having top level management that consists of CEO, COO,
managing director, etc. They are responsible for formulating strategies and setting goals and
objectives. Moreover, their role is to communicate with the stakeholders (Kelly, 2017). Besides
this, they monitor the overall business performance by analysing financial reports and
statements.
Middle level- It consists of general managers, regional manager, etc. of different departments.
Their role is to develop strategies and implement them in order to achieve goals and objectives
set by the top management. They act as a mediator in between top level and supervisors. They
assign and delegate the roles to each supervisor. Also, they monitor and control activities that are
done by supervisors.
Supervisor – They lie just above an employee and are responsible for assigning daily activities to
employees. They are in direct contact with them (Sanders, 2016). So, it helps them to know what
changes are to be made in products.
Employees – They are the people who perform activities on daily basis to achieve set goals and
objectives. They are in direct contact with customers and so, they know what changes in tastes
and preferences of customers are there. Also, they identify and solve customer problems and
issues.
Human resource- Bing Lee is having human resource department that looks after all the work
force related activities (Wickramasinghe, Cooray and Dissanayake, 2017). It is responsible for
keeping and maintaining records of all employees. Also, they measure and evaluate their
performance on the basis on set standards.
Finance- It is responsible for maintaining financial record of bing lee. They keeps and track
accounts receivables, payrolls, inventory, etc. this department takes decision and allocates
resources to all other departments. It also develops budgets and identifies the financial position
of bing lee.
Three types of system acquisition methods

Commercial software- It is a software that is designed or developed for the sale. It is generally
used for the commercial purpose. It helps in providing services of two systems in single one. It is
used by medium sized businesses to analyse data and information (Rahman and Uddin, 2015).
By using this, graphs and charts are made that give an effective report on the financial position of
firm. It is used to create customised functions according to specific business needs. For example-
Quickbooks, Turbobooks, etc.
Custom software- These software are generally designed for the specific purpose. It provides
solution to a specific problem. Generally, it is widely used in the market. It does not include
modern equipment and process. Also, it does not contain special information technology tools.
Enterprise resource planning – It is a software that comprises of various functions. It is a
business process management software that allows business to manage all its functions (Wang
and Do, 2015). It requires an effective data expert to handle it. It manages human resource
planning, CRM, etc. By this, it becomes easy for business to identify what resources are required
and accordingly, planning is done.
Types of accounting software
Spreadsheets – It is often used by small business in programs such as Microsoft Excel, Google
sheets, etc. In this, data is entered by individual on daily basis. It only helps in calculating the
profit and loss. Only expenses, sales, etc. are recorded in this.
Commercial software- It is used by medium sized business to analyse data and information. By
using the same, graphs and charts are made that give an effective report on financial position of
firm. It is used to create customise functions according to specific business needs (Drew, 2015).
Custom software- It is created by business according to its specific needs. It is designed for
particular purpose. Also, it is used by small enterprises. It provides solution to a specific
problem. Generally, it is widely used in the market.
Enterprise accounting software – Generally, used by big enterprise and organisations. It is a
software that comprises various functions (Hui and Chang, 2016). It is a business process
management software that allows business to manage its all functions. It requires an effective
data socialist to handle it. It manages human resource planning, CRM, etc.
Flowchart

This type of flowchart can lead to many problems. As it is seen that there are many steps
in sales process. This can result in many problems that can affect bing lee operations. So it needs
to be controlled by taking some measures Schiff and Szendi, 2014). They are as follows:-
The flowchart can be reduced to few steps. It will help in direct selling of product to
customers. By this, it will be easy to record which product is to be delivered to what place. This
will help in maintaining the record of each product sold. So, this will reduce the chances of
fraud.
Bing lee can face certain issues due to its organisational structure. It will affect the
business operations and functions. Moreover, they can face communication issues as
management has not developed a proper communication network. Moreover, it can have a huge

impact on decisions. Moreover, it can lead to errors in maintaining the accounts. This is because;
it is having a very complex structure (Zimmerman and Libby, 2017). This enables lower level
employees to communicate with the managers. This will help the manager to take decision on
right time. They might take improper decision that will affect the overall operations.
PART 2
An accounting software helps an organisation to maintain its financial statements. By
implementing accounting software, company is able to record each and every transaction.
Software also helps in informing organisation about its financial position in the market.
Moreover, it shows how much profit is earned by the firm (Fidan, Aslan and Subasi, 2015).
Besides this, it helps in taking the effective decisions. Along with this, there are many benefits
are of using accounting software.
Bing Lee is using xero accounting software in their organisation. It has been effectively
implemented at all levels and helping in recording every transaction. Moreover, if bing lee is
benefited by installing this software, it has improved thier efficiency. By using xero firm is able
to maintain its accounts. Xero is a New Zealand based company that provides accounting
software and services to medium and small sized organisations (Dimitriu and Matei, 2015). It is
having moderate market share in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. Along with the product,
company provides various services for maintaining its software. Xero is an online accounting
software that helps company to process, maintain and record data as well as information related
to finance. It helps small and medium sized businesses to do internal and external audits. Besides
this, it is useful in classification, verification and interpretation of financial information. It can
range from low to high level prices. It may consist of single or double entry systems. There are
many functions that are performed by the finance department (Svobodova and Cerna, 2016). It is
related to accounts payroll, receivable, inventory and other functions.
It has been analysed that using accounting software has enabled bing lee to effectively
maintain its records. By using this, it is able to allot resources to each department according to
their requirements. Moreover, there has been effective utilisation of resources in bing lee. But
company can use alternative software that will help them to increase efficiency in their business
operations. They can use MYOB, Saasu, sage one, etc. This will be very beneficial in keeping

track of all transactions. Furthermore, it will be easy for employees to understand its features and
specifications (Aman and Mohamed, 2018). It will be easy to implement and install at lower
levels. Also, the cost of maintaining this software will be low. This will reduce company’s
expenses. Along with this, using MYOP, saasu, etc. are simpler. These are not as complex as
xero.
Market size of Xero
Xero: It is an accounting software for the small and medium sized of businesses. This system to
designed accounting and the financial activities of business. Xero is an online application
accounting software. Xero is accounting software that helps users to manage the cash flow
process, invoicing, payments, records and transactions of sales and purchases (Onan,
Alaybeyoğlu and Okyay, 2018). It is the time saving software that helps business to grow. The
software helps small businesses to their data secured.

Xero Features: Xero is user friendly online accounting software. It is directly connected to bank
and shows transactions. It displays dashboard of the company if its transactions are entered. It
views your business performance. This software is easy to use for the payment of bills and each
paid bills are shown on the paid tab screen. It manages stock of online and offline sales as well as
payments and suppliers of cash flow (Arahman and Rahman, 2014). Xero software manages bills
and purchase. Xero is an online banking transaction and consists statement into categories. Bank
accounts are feed to get bank data in xero accounts every day. Cash flow management describes
that how much money the business has received from one point to another. It shows the
management of this flow and analyses change as well. This accounting software is used to record
Illustration 1: Market size of Xero
(Source: About Xero, 2018)

and track accounting records (Schiff and Szendi, 2014). The best feature is that it can be login in
from anywhere. It is having online access from anytime and anywhere. It also manages the fixed
assets and manage depreciation and disposal of it.
In the accounting software two biggest names are Xero and Quickbooks both are the
software options payroll invoice, bank feeds, transaction and more. Xero is the continues year
growth and a clear strategy focused on investing for long term growth. This software is in second
position in terms of market share in Australia.
3) Competition is increasing in Australian accounting software market. This is due to
increase in number of small and large number of enterprises. There are many factors that can
affect the success of accounting software in the market (Zimmerman and Libby, 2017). These
factors have to be overcome so as to gain successful response from customers and businesses.
Xero is the leader in this sector. They have given customers an effective and efficient accounting
software. It has allowed xero to have competitive advantages over its rivals. This is because of
certain benefits that are given in it.. It is a user friendly software. It helps in providing a clear
overview of how entire functioning of software works. Moreover, it is easy to update this as it is
provided free by company. Apart from this, as it is an online software so, there is no need to
maintain or keep backup of data. The data entered in software automatically backed up. So, these
all features and benefits give xero the competitive advantage in the market.
Challenges faced by users using accounting software - Using an accounting software
improves business operations by taking fast and effective decisions (Fidan, Aslan and Subasi,
2015). But, on the other hand, there are many challenges that are faced by customers and users
for using accounting software. These challenges affect the functions of business operations.
These are as follows:-
Lack of security- It is the most common challenge that is faced by users for using this. It
does not provide enough security in protecting the data. According to report Dimitriu and Matei,
2015, it is observed that 46% of users faced issues regarding security. It was because of financial
frauds, threats that were faced by users. Moreover, not many organisations were able to
implement strong security solutions. This resulted in user access control.

MYOB is also not so user friendly software. This made user to interact effectively with
others. Also, they were not able to understand how software works and data is entered in it.
Recommendations and suggestions
In order to overcome challenges faced by users while using accounting software, there
are various improvements that can be done (Svobodova and Cerna, 2016). For this, several
recommendations can be followed:
 First of all, software must be developed in a user friendly way. This will help users to
interact with software effectively. Also, it will help business to maintain a smooth flow of
operations. Besides this, it will be easy to attract and retain customers.
 Apart from this, strong security measures should be developed and installed in software.
This will help in protecting data and making software reliable to use.
 The quality of service for maintaining software should be improved. Before providing
software to business, an overview must be given to them. It will help the user and
business to know every detail of its functioning.
 A separate infrastructure must be created so that it will keep that backup of data. Besides
this, data will be protected safely. This will increase trust of users and business to use
accounting software (Aman and Mohamed, 2018).
 Xero can remove third party from its software. They can provide their own services by
developing infrastructure, building networks, etc.
Thus, by following these suggestions, accounting software companies can improve its
services. It will help in protecting the data and making software more secures and safe.
Moreover, it will provide efficiency in using this and making it more user friendly.
CONCLUSION
From the report, it can be concluded that an accounting software helps an organisation to
maintain its financial statements. There are various types of accounting software that are used by
the enterprise. It helps them in maintaining the accounts. Bing lee is using xero accounting
software in their organisation. It has been effectively implemented at all levels and helping in
recording every transaction. Software also helps in informing organisation about its financial

position in the market. It has also been assessed that there are many factors that can affect the
success of accounting software.