A Literature Review of Accounting Software Implementation in CommBank

This literature review explores the implementation of accounting software, specifically Xero, within the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CommBank). It examines various journals and articles discussing the technological adaptations in Australian banking, focusing on how CommBank utilizes Xero for accounting information management, transaction processing, and improved service quality. The review highlights the competitive landscape of the Australian software industry, with MYOB, Intuit, and Xero as key players, and discusses the shift towards cloud-based accounting solutions. While acknowledging the benefits, the review also addresses security concerns associated with cloud computing and unauthorized access. The papers suggest that despite these challenges, Xero has become a trusted accounting solution for CommBank, contributing to business expansion and efficient accounting practices. The review also notes some shortcomings in the selected papers, particularly a lack of focus on potential negative impacts and a need for more in-depth discussion of security issues.

Running head: ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE IMPLEMENTATION IN COMMBANK
Accounting Software Implementation in CommBank
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Papers under Review...................................................................................................................3
Justification for Paper Selection..................................................................................................4
Summary of Findings..................................................................................................................4
Strengths of the Papers................................................................................................................7
Shortcomings of the Papers.........................................................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
The AIS or Accounting Information System broadly manages the concept of accounting
software. Accounting software provides processing and recording of accounting transactions
using handy modules such as, account receivable, account payable, trial balance, payroll, general
financial transactions and others. This accounting software could either be made by ingenious
developers or be bought from a third-party software generator. The cost and complexity forms
the variety in the software packages. Accounting Software originates back in 1959 with the
development of 9Pac, a first report generation language by IBM. It allowed users to access and
store structured data from a set of relational databases from different computers. However, the
system was not flexible enough as tasks were performed in batches. Gradually, flexible
functionalities developed from the year 1973 (Bott & Milkau, 2014). Therefore, it became quite
common to use accounting software in organizations. The following literature review would
consist of journals that describe the use of accounting software in Commonwealth Bank,
commonly known as CommBank in Australia. The bank uses the accounting software called
Xero, the accounting software developed in New Zealand. The literature review would further
consist of the papers that have been under review and the reasonable justification that is used to
select the papers. The literature review would then have the findings that have been there in the
papers reviewed. In addition, the review would also describe what shortcomings the papers have
along with the strengths the paper possesses. This would help in having a proper idea about the
subject and also analyse the journals that have been written about the context.

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Papers under Review
1. Bott, J., & Milkau, U. (2014). Mobile wallets and current accounts: Friends or
foes?. Journal of Payments Strategy & Systems, 8(3), 289-299.
2. Burdon, S., Mooney, G., & Kang, K. (2017). Lessons in Innovation from the Digital
Marketplace. Journal of Service Theory and Practice.
3. Bushman, R., Chen, Q., Engel, E., & Smith, A. (2004). Financial accounting information,
organizational complexity and corporate governance systems. Journal of Accounting and
Economics, 37(2), 167-201.
4. Flaherty, S. (2018). Bookkeeping in the Cloud: Advancements in Accounting
Software (Doctoral dissertation, Appalachian State University).
5. Haider, S. (2015). Exploring the Relationship between Changes in Accounting Policies
and Valuation of Australian Banking Firms (Doctoral dissertation, Victoria University).
6. Hansnata, M. (2016). The impact of digital innovation on the social structure of
professional public accounting practice in Australia.
7. Ketterer, J. A. (2017). Digital Finance: New Times, New Challenges, New Opportunities.
Inter-American Development Bank.
8. Kothari, S. P. (2001). Capital markets research in accounting. Journal of accounting and
economics, 31(1-3), 105-231.
9. Leonard, P. (2018). Data Commercialisation: Contracts, Safeguards and No-Go Zones.
10. McWilliams, K. (2017). Productivity in accounting services. Improving service sector
productivity: the economic imperative, 118.
11. Smith, H. (2017). Xero for dummies. John Wiley & Sons.

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Justification for Paper Selection
The papers under review are selected very specifically. This is because the papers holding
no relevance to the topic to be discussed would generate a low quality literature review. The
papers selected for this purpose depicts clear views about the use of the accounting software
called Xero in the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (Bushman et al., 2014). The papers selected
have different views about the use of accounting software in banking sectors in Australia in a
more general manner, then focusing to the use of Xero in CommBank. Some of the papers also
have opinions on the subject of the structure of accounting in CommBank before the
implementation of accounting software like Xero. The papers selected in this regard are
appropriate on the basis of the topic in discussion. However, few of the papers focus on the
working of accounting software and their utilization in shaping up the banking sectors of
Australia. These papers are selected to tactfully and elaborately focus on the gradual changes the
accounting software bear on the banking sectors in Australia. This would give a good view for
analysing the technological change and its impact on the banking sectors in Australia. Therefore,
it can be said that the papers that are selected for the literature review about the use of accounting
software called Xero in Commonwealth Bank of Australia or CommBank are justified. The
detailed literature review; fulfilling the requirements of the journals and books chosen, the
strengths and weaknesses of the papers and other clarifications would follow as below.
Summary of Findings
The papers under review have elaborated on the fact of the technological adaptations of
Australia and its banking sectors. It especially focuses on the matter of accounting software
implementation for Commonwealth Bank of Australia or CommBank (Flaherty, 2018). It has

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been found according to the papers that there had been a war waged over the SME system of
Australia, where 70 percent of the businesses owned by Australia had started implementing the
use of Accounting Software to their businesses (Haider, 2015). In this matter, the Commercial
banks all over Australia have become pioneers and they have ever since encouraged the SMEs
into utilizing these technological changes. Especially, the accounting software called Xero has
come in the forefront in Australian Banking Sectors forming an agreement to the Commonwealth
Bank or CommBank, one of the country’s leading financial institution (Burdon, Mooney, &
Kang, 2017). Xero was first founded by an organization called The Wellington that had signed a
deal with the Commonwealth Bank to put forward the business of Xero into further expansions.
It has also been found that, CommBank uses the accounting software called Xero to gather
accounting information, storing and processing of bills and invoices, updating of receipts and
making transactions in the best cost effective ways. In another journal, it has been put forward
that Xero is an award winning software. According to the authors, Xero has been particularly
useful in improving the service quality that CommBank Australia traditionally offered to the
customers (Hansnata, 2016). The integration being essentially seamless between the service
provider and the bank ensures that the account payable in real time and the data of further
expenses are updated immediately to the accounts logs. It has also been found in the articles that
there has been extreme competition in the Australian software industry. The companies that were
using accounting software are mostly the small and middle scaled organizations (Ketterer, 2017).
The accounting software that makes the Australian market is MYOB, Intuit, and Xero. The
papers suggest that these are the biggest accounting software in discussion in the Australian
markets and these software packages have been implementing cloud computing to their
developmental structures as well. Cloud accounting software is therefore becoming the latest

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implementation that the Banking Sectors of Australia is dealing with. It is not just being
implemented now for small and middle sized businesses but also to larger organizations like the
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (Kothari, 2014). Moreover, Commonwealth Bank of Australia
have been able to identify the gaps in the users if the desktop accounting software. Although,
initially, the organizations faced challenges as the departments were not autonomous units, but
eventually the implementation of accounting software in Commonwealth Bank in Australia is
happening at an exponential rate.
The journals suggest that the origin of accounting software dates back to 1959 with the
implementation of 9PAC, developed by IBM. This was developed as per the first generation of
account registering and report generation software and gradually with the advancement of time it
started to advance in capabilities (Leonard, 2018). Further, the accounting software became
much more advanced with every passing time and was able to handle a wide range of business
operation for faster financial decision. It also removed the non-valuable intermediaries. With the
gradual and positive changes now implemented in the system, Xero has become one of the
biggest accounting software that is being able to share the Australian software market. It
emphasizes its utilization in the cloud computing environment. Further about Xero, the journals
suggest that this software uses a model of Software as a Service or SaaS (Oliveira et al., 2014). It
provides the third party vendors with free API and the customer integrates other applications on
a single and unified ledger on the cloud. Xero is capable of providing the users with its
operations on the cloud based environment and cloud infrastructure with the help of a thin but
firm user interface such as a web browser (McWilliams, 2017). The papers also suggest that
there is although a problem that Commonwealth Bank of Australia faces in the face of security
problems while implementing Xero accounting software. In spite of the presence of existing

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measures for security, the users of the accounting software do not feel safe to use Xero due to its
provision of use by foreign parties and unauthorized access (Adams, 2016). This concern is due
to the cloud computing background for Xero, which is considered a dicey environment in
security issues. In spite of the existing security issues in the system, the utilization for Xero has
become one of the most trusted software systems for accounting all over the Commonwealth
Bank of Australia (Ross, 2016). This has given a major boost to the business expansion for Xero
all over the country of Australia, as well as, the technological advancement has given
Commonwealth Bank of Australia the required ease of keeping accounting records and managing
other accounting tasks as well. This has only become possible since the effectiveness and
efficacy of the accounting software Xero has lead to its instant adoption by the Commonwealth
Bank of Australia.
Strengths of the Papers
The papers that have been selected for the journal reviews for the advancement of
Commonwealth Bank of Australia in utilizing Xero as an accounting software has its strengths in
discussing detailed information about the subject under discussion (Schorr et al., 2013). The
strengths of the papers would be thoroughly discussed in this section for being the relevant
literature evidences. The papers reviewed for this purpose not only provide information about the
topic but also about Xero as successful accounting software, its advantages and disadvantages as
well. The papers reviewed also possesses the information about the traditional accounting
systems that were used in the banks all over Australia and also the latest situation in the
Australian Banks after the utilization of accounting software (Scholar, 2017). Although, the
papers focuses on the situation of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and its utilization of the

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accounting software called Xero. The primary strength of the papers is that all of them follow the
basic rule of a journal article. Every paper focuses on the unit matter it describes and justifies the
subjects that the authors have chosen to discuss. The critical analysis of the journals implies that
the subject that it has chosen to elaborate has been discussed in details. Therefore, similar as the
justification of the paper selections suggest, the strengths of the papers rely on the fact of being
reasonable in describing the subject matters each paper holds. This justifies the argument for the
journals being considered as the feasible literary resources in the proposed subject.
Shortcomings of the Papers
The papers selected in this regards have few shortcomings as well. It is not clearly
described if these technological advancements have any negative impact on the Banking sectors
in Australia. However, it describes the fact that cloud environment has the potential risks of data
mishandling (ZAKARIA & ISLAM, 2014). The papers selected lack the view about these
security issues that CommBank faces due to the cloud environment of Xero accounting software.
There is no mention of how these security risks can be tackled as well. Neither the papers hold
the idea of the bank employees being resourceful in handling these problems. Therefore, it can
be said that the papers under review misses few details regarding the wholesome idea of the
implementation of Xero accounting software in Commonwealth Bank of Australia or
CommBank. This is the fact that makes the literatures under review fall short to the wholesome
understanding about the Xero accounting software implementation in CommBank. The
technological impacts do possess positive as well as negative implications on the topic, however,
these fall short to describe the negative impact or the methods that would help in tacking the
risks associated with the technical advancements in the banking sectors of Australia.

9ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE IMPLEMENTATION IN COMMBANK
Conclusion
In conclusion it can be said that the literature review for the use of the accounting
software called Xero in Commonwealth Bank of Australia or CommBank has focused on the
technology changes the banking sector has implemented. The previous use of the accounting
systems is tenuous and very complicated. The literatures selected to be reviewed on this topic
sheds light to the latest technology for accounting that eases the traditional hard process of
storing, generating and implementing accounting transactions of an entire organization. It has
also been found that the banking sectors in Australia have been gradually becoming more
inclined towards the implementation of these software systems as they are much more agile and
useful. The papers also puts forward the fact that the latest technology for accounting via
software system is useful but also prone to security risks since these processes are based on cloud
computing. The development of Xero has been build entirely on cloud environment and thus the
infrastructure of all the accounting transactions needs to be transferred for storage and other
accounting operations from the cloud as well. Therefore, it has the potential risk of being
targeted by the hackers. In addition, the cloud environment also has the potential risks of data
mishandling. The papers selected lack the view about these security issues that CommBank faces
due to the cloud environment of Xero accounting software. There is no mention of how these
security risks can be tackled as well. Neither the papers hold the idea of the bank employees
being resourceful in handling these problems. Therefore, it can be said that the papers under
review misses few details regarding the wholesome idea of the implementation of Xero
accounting software in Commonwealth Bank of Australia or CommBank, but puts forward
reasonable information about the topic under discussion with full details about the positive
impacts of the technological advancements.

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References
Adams, M. A. (2016). Contemporary case studies in corporate governance failures. Governance
Directions, 68(6), 335.
Bott, J., & Milkau, U. (2014). Mobile wallets and current accounts: Friends or foes?. Journal of
Payments Strategy & Systems, 8(3), 289-299.
Burdon, S., Mooney, G., & Kang, K. (2017). Lessons in Innovation from the Digital
Marketplace. Journal of Service Theory and Practice.
Bushman, R., Chen, Q., Engel, E., & Smith, A. (2014). Financial accounting information,
organizational complexity and corporate governance systems. Journal of Accounting and
Economics, 37(2), 167-201.
Flaherty, S. (2018). Bookkeeping in the Cloud: Advancements in Accounting Software (Doctoral
dissertation, Appalachian State University).
Haider, S. (2015). Exploring the Relationship between Changes in Accounting Policies and
Valuation of Australian Banking Firms (Doctoral dissertation, Victoria University).
Hansnata, M. (2016). The impact of digital innovation on the social structure of professional
public accounting practice in Australia.
Ketterer, J. A. (2017). Digital Finance: New Times, New Challenges, New Opportunities. Inter-
American Development Bank.
Kothari, S. P. (2014). Capital markets research in accounting. Journal of accounting and
economics, 31(1-3), 105-231.

11ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE IMPLEMENTATION IN COMMBANK
Leonard, P. (2018). Data Commercialisation: Contracts, Safeguards and No-Go Zones.
McWilliams, K. (2017). Productivity in accounting services. Improving service sector
productivity: the economic imperative, 118.
Oliveira, T., Faria, M., Thomas, M. A., & Popovič, A. (2014). Extending the understanding of
mobile banking adoption: When UTAUT meets TTF and ITM. International Journal of
Information Management, 34(5), 689-703.
Ross, P. K. (2016). Australian SME Micro-Offshoring Opportunities in the Philippines: An
Expanding Niche Market?(No. DP 2016-35).
Scholar, P. G. (2017). Mobile Banking Services. International Journal of Engineering
Science, 14357.
Schorr, M., Sylvester, M., Dopf, G., Henrich, D., Liebich, G., Conrad, M., ... & Soltek, R.
(2013). U.S. Patent No. 8,442,850. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Skelton, P. (2015). Credit cards hit pay dirt. Plumbing Connection, (Autumn 2015), 96.
Smith, H. (2017). Xero for dummies. John Wiley & Sons.
Sun, C., Zhang, J., Liu, C., King, B. C. B., Zhang, Y., Galle, M., & Spichkova, M. (2017).
Towards Software Development For Social Robotics Systems. arXiv preprint
arXiv:1712.08348.
Taylor, K. (2018). Making tax digital: Which software?. Practice Management, 28(4), 41-42.
ZAKARIA, S., & ISLAM, S. M. (2014). A NEW FRAMEWORK OF BANKING RISK
MANAGEMENT EFFICIENCY ANALYSIS: AN INTEGRATED APPROACH

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BASED ON HEDGE ACCOUNTING AND DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS
(DEA). Recent Developments in Data Envelopment Analysis and its Applications, 21.