Design and Development for Accountants

Group Assignment

This  assignment  is  part  of  the  continuous  assessment  and  feedback.      It  is  a  group  assignment  with  a maximum of four students. Please note again that as this is a group assignment and all students in the group are expected to work together and to contribute equitably. This group study has been allocated 30 % marks.

Due date of submission of assignment

Due date of submission of group assignment for all students is Friday week 10.

Late assignments

Extensions for assignments need to be made through Federation University’s special consideration procedures. Assignments submitted after the due date without special consideration granted, will be

automatically penalised at a rate of 10% per day late. Assignments will not be accepted if more than five days late, unless prior approval has been given.

Task 1 – (20 marks)

BACKGROUND

Sam Walton and John Walton are two brothers who run their father’s 20-year-old business “Walton Brothers Auto Solutions”. They have two divisions in their business. Sam looks after the workshop, where they service new and used cars. Second division of business is retail of automotive parts, which is looked after by John. Retail shop is located just 20 minutes away from car service workshop. Both sites are located in Sunshine suburb of Melbourne. From last 2-3 years their business has been growing at a very fast pace.

Their business continues to use traditional means of reporting and heavily relies on paper based reporting mechanism. However, as business is expanding fast so it is becoming difficult to keep up with the pace of reporting requirements, need of timely information primarily in relation to costing, pricing and sales revenue for their business. Margaret Jones is their bookkeeper; she spends considerable time for just maintaining the books and journalising transactions in a traditional way. Many a times payments to suppliers are delayed and payments from customers are not received by due date. On some occasions customers do not make payment and Walton Brothers do not even chase all overdue payments in a timely manner due to using traditional recording and reporting mechanism. In last couple of years business revenue has grown by more than 80%, which then lead to increase in many expenses and other costs. Walton Brothers are facing cash flow issues and are finding it hard to maintain a reputation of reliable operators.

Margaret advised Walton Brothers that they needed to improve their accounting systems and not using computerised accounting software was one of the issues.

REQUIREMENTS

• Explain traditional accounting system for recording accounting transactions. Identify its strengthens and weaknesses
• What are various options that Walton Brothers have if they want to have automation in their Accounting techniques? At present their entire recording and reporting is paper based.
• Conduct an online research and suggest at least two accounting software that they can use. For both software answer the followings:

o Explain how it will solve current problem o Explain strengths and any weaknesses

o  Explain cost to purchase and implement (software and hardware cost both)

o How is using a Accounting software different from using existing traditional Accounting techniques

o Explain if any other computer based programme can be used to substantiate Accounting software’s. If, yes how can they be more effective then using the Accounting software for daily Accounting processes within an organisation.

Task 2 – (10 marks)

Select any Technology driven company, which has gone from very small scale to Large -scale organization through Technology driven approach. Do some research on their past and present business processes, which have made a significant contribution in the revenue growth within their organisation? Also discuss and make a list of benefits in using Technology driven approach.

Why do you think Technology plays an important role in Accounting Professions?

How can use of Information systems eliminate the data error possibilities?

Why is it important in todays accounting profession to focus on paper less work processes?

Support your answers with some existing practises in Accounting profession.

No suggested word length as response depends on selected company and their policy.

Task 3 – (10 marks)

Conduct a web search for some examples of companies/organisations where internal controls have Failed to operate effectively. You can also look at some of the corporate collapses including failures of Any banking institutions. Examples can also be a non-profit organisation such as football club or Hospital etc. Your selected case would have received media publicity or there would have been some Government investigation.

For the cases you have identified, answer the following questions:

• What factors led to the failure of these controls?
• Could the failure have been avoided? If so, how?