Week 10: Accounting process

1. Week 10:Accounting process MIS2101: Management Information Systems Based on material developed by C.J. Marselis

2. Introduction • Accounting tightly integrated with other functional areas • Purchasing • Marketing and Sales • Supply Chain Management • Accounting activities are necessary for decision making

3. Types of Accounting • What is the purpose of “Financial Accounting”? • What is the purpose of “Managerial Accounting”?

4. Sales Process Where does Accounting have an interest? Is this financial accounting or managerial accounting? Can you identify 5 examples?

5. USDA Nutrition Label How you know what’s inside before you buy For investors, how do you know “what’s inside” before you buy?

6. Financial Accounting Statements Balance Sheet Shows account balances Picture of the overall financial health of a company Income Statement Shows sales, cost of sales and overall profit for a period of time (quarter, year)

7. Accounting Information • Before integrated systems • Data gathered by each functional area • Accounting department didn’t have real-time access • Accountants and clerks had to “research” their own company to get information • With ERP • Materials management records a goods receipts as an increase in inventory • Accounting records a goods receipts as an increase in the value of inventory • The same transaction provides information for both

8. The General Ledger (GL) in an Integrated System • What is the “General Ledger”? • When is the general ledger updated with a non-integrated system? How about with an integrated system?

9. Credit Management • Companies extend credit to customers to make purchases • Credit is limited • With each purchase, available credit is reduced • With each payment or return, available credit is increased • What do you do if a new sale will put a customer over their limit?

10. How many other purchases this week? Sales Process Have we received any payments this week? Have they made any returns this week? Credit report sent weekly How would this look with an integrated system?

11. Accounting Data and Profitability Analysis • Inaccurate or incomplete data leads to flawed analysis & bad decision making • What are some of the causes of data problems?

12. Inconsistent Record Keeping • Direct Division & Distributor Division keep their own records and keep different information • Direct Division records sales region • Distributor Division records sales state • Can make some reporting extremely challenging • Sales by state within region • Production records are paper, not electronic • How many places can errors be introduced? • How would this look with an ERP?

13. Inaccurate Inventory Costing Systems • Inventory is expensive! • What are some of your major costs?

14. Question How difficult is it to answer this question with an integrated system?

15. Inventory Costing Systems • How much does it cost me to make an individual product and where do I get all of this information? • Which products are profitable and which are not? Without knowing your costs, are you sure? • What happens to costs when production is interrupted? • Do they really have a clue? What if they had an ERP?

17. Question • What do we mean when we say a company has do “close its books”? • How often does a company do this? • How complicated is this?

18. Even More Complicated for Companies with Subsidiaries • What do I need to do to produce financial reports when I have a company with subsidiaries? • What if I have different subsidiaries in different countries? • What if one subsidiary sells products to another subsidiary?

19. Case Study: Microsoft • Microsoft consolidates financial information from 130 subsidiaries • Pre-SAP: each subsidiary had separate accounting • Each used different systems, with different field sizes, types of characters, account structures • Transmitted the files to another system where manipulation of the data was required • Consolidation took over a week • With SAP: Microsoft can look directly at financial activity at any subsidiary around the world

20. Case Study – Cisco and One-Day Close • Closing books • zeroing out temporary accounts • Takes days/weeks/months to get all the financial figures in balance before company can close the financial period • “Virtual closings” during the month can show how well the company is doing • Cisco’s closing went from 2 weeks to 1 day by switching from “un-integrated” systems to Oracle ERP

21. Enron Collapse

22. Enron Collapse • Energy company revolutionizing the oil and gas business • On Oct. 16, 2001, Enron’s creative financial arrangements began to unravel • On Dec. 2, 2001, Enron made the largest bankruptcy filing in history • Key cause: Enron’s partnerships shifted billions of debt off Enron’s books so Enron could borrow money more cheaply • Arthur Andersen: • Respected accounting firm with firm with 28,000 employees - issued annual reports attesting to the validity of Enron’s financial statements • Arthur Andersen indicted for, among other things, destruction of Enron documents

23. Results of Enron Collapse • Enron’s 20,000 creditors will receive approximately 20% of the $63 billion they are owed • Shareholders will receive nothing • Many employees invested large sums of money in Enron stock via 401K savings plans • Arthur Andersen dismantled • 31 individuals either have been tried or will be tried on criminal charges • The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed

24. Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 • Requires public company’s annual report contain management’s internal control report • Must include documentation of controls • An integrated information system provides tools to implement internal controls • Controls cannot necessarily prevent effort to circumvent standard processes • Companies with ERP systems will have an easier time complying with Sarbanes-Oxley

25. Archiving And Fraud Detection • Why it’s hard to delete information in SAP? • What could an unscrupulous employee do if this were not true? • What is “Archiving” in SAP? Data on a company’s materials cannot be deleted directly, but must be archived for deletion

26. Integrated System and Fraud Detection • Changes to data are tracked SAP R/3 maintains detailed records on all changes made to material master data

27. Integrated System and Fraud Detection • What is “User Authorization” all about? • How many employees does it take to do something like create and approve the payment of a large invoice?

28. Integrated System and Fraud Detection • What are “Tolerance Groups”?

29. Double-clicking on the 8,810.00 debit will provide details on the transactions that make up the item Integrated System and Fraud Detection • Financial Transparency • ERP systems have “drill down” functionality from report to source documents (transactions) that created them • Makes it easier for auditors to verify integrity of reports

30. Line items linked… Selecting the 10.00 item and clicking on the details icon will provide more information on the item Figure 5.12 Documents that make up G/L Account Balance for Raw Material Consumption

31. …to the documents that created them Figure 5.13 Details on $10.00 line item in G/L account for raw material consumption

32. Summary • Companies use accounting systems to record transactions and generate financial statements • Should have ability to summarize data to assist managers in their daily and strategic work • With “un-integrated” systems, accounting data might not be current • Integrated IS with common database to record accounting data facilitates inventory benefits • Compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley Act facilitated with integrated systems