Introduction
An accounting information system is designed to record all business transactions. In our scenario, the accounting employees will be trained how to enter business transactions into the computer system. This will allow for immediate posting of billing & collection information in to corresponding accounts hence retrieving of such information made easy (Bowen 85).
Discussion
The AIS will create accounts receivable, accounts payable and financial statements accounts that will be used for analysis at the end of the year.
Bills Receivable
The AIS allows recording of information on the sytems that the accounting clerks will actualize for easier billing. Printing is determined by accounting clerks and can be done on daily, weekly or monthly basis according to the business requirements. For instance, in our scenario the employees will generate the bills receivable on the first day of the last month of each quarter for payment y the end of the quarter. The AIS will also be structured to allow for charging of late payment interest at 1% of the amount due. The documents necessary for billing receivable include invoices and receipts. Data input will consist the process of purchase order, address capturing to the invoice generation.
Bill Payable
Designing of accounts payable module in the accounting information systems will allow payment of bills. The systems will be designed simply by clicking of a button that will be followed by the selection of a date that will lead to automatic generation of checks due or payment due. The system also allow staff to select bills that the company is ready and willing to pay at a certain time and unselect others not yet ready for payment. For instance,
Reporting
Financial reports will easy be generated by the AIS. Simply by entering a specific date or period of choice and requesting for a report, a report is generated. The AIS easily generates report on information recorded previously in to the system. This information is useful for measuring performance in terms of cash flow, client payment turnover and planning for the future of the company.
The AIS makes the year end generation of financial statements easy and less time consuming (Hall 56).
Probable Future Challenges of AIS
The AIS threats may be experienced in the future include; relevance and reliability of accounting information which might lead to poor decisions. Lack of relevance may result from lack of proper security controls at the entry data levels, unauthorized access and validity and completion of transaction entries in to the systems. These may result to creation of illegal programs, deleting or accessing of sensitive files and corruption in processing of data (Wang & Madnick 256).
Conclusion
An accounting information system is designed to record all business transactions. It is a computerized program applied in accounting that keeps records of a firm efficiently and provides a company’s financial information comprehensively. It ensures an organisation adheres to all law and regulation requirements in the industry.