unit 10 Threats and Opportunities

jo1972

I am on the analysis of the system part of the project which is based on the purchase ledger (using the case study). I have done my SWOT analysis and my tutor has asked me to come uo with one more Threat and Opportunity - external - any ideas would be greatfully recieved.

Am on a deadline - need to complete before 30th april as last bit to finish of old standards

thanx

sdv

jo1972 wrote: »

I am on the analysis of the system part of the project which is based on the purchase ledger (using the case study). I have done my SWOT analysis and my tutor has asked me to come uo with one more Threat and Opportunity - external - any ideas would be greatfully recieved.

Am on a deadline - need to complete before 30th april as last bit to finish of old standards

thanx

I don't know what opportunities or threats you have written but what is required is the review of Purchase Legder work flow and identify any threats and opportunities


1 receive a request from stores (a review of purchase request is required.- am oppertunity to intrduce one if not in place)

2 a quote for best price, quantity, quality and delivery date is sought. Threat - unqualified or untrained person may not have full knowledge of available suppliers and may get quotes rom only known supplier, (B) coluding with a known supplier, get quotes from other supplier and make sure that a coluded supplier gets ine inside information to quote at a favourabe rate. OPP- privide regular training to staff OPP negotiate a better settlement and credit terms by playing one supplier against another

3 place a purchase order - threat - at a different price then quoted in the suppliers quote. PO is an offer to enter into a legal contract

4 Receive a GRN from STORES - any chance that a purchase ledger clerk, stores manager and supplier are in colusion to defraud the company?

5 Received invoice for more goods then delivered at the stores. OR delivered more good then ordered.......

6 paymet to supplier before the due date


and so on..............

jo1972

thanks for that - but I have done that bit and a lot of that comes under the fraud section but my tutor has asked for an external opportunity and threat to be added to my swot analysis

Rinske

have a think, how can external people abuse your purchase ledger system. Can they send you an invoice and would this be paid, without checking if this is correct or not? Could they say they delivered 2000 items of something instead of 1000 and would this be paid? Could they all of a sudden raise the price with 50% per unit, without communicating this to you? In other words, how well are invoices checked before they are paid?

How well are the terms negotiated with your suppliers?

Those would be an external threat or opportunity, depending on how well it is checked.

For example:
How close do you communicate with your suppliers? We had two suppliers all of a sudden changing our payment terms, without telling us, so all of a sudden they were chasing us for payments, even though we didn't know they were due already. Even though this might be easily accepted within the purchase ledger department and usually just means a quick change on the payment terms on their accounts, it has a negative impact on cash flow and if they do it without reason or communicating this, it's not something we accept. We're happy to pay a few days earlier if it is around their year end or if they have a good reason for it, but a change of terms permanently is not accepted without reason and usually not at all.

Another opportunity is to look into receiving rebates from suppliers. If you use multiple suppliers for the same goods and one of them offers a rebate, if you purchase x amount over the year and you purchase more than that a year, it's well worth comparing the prices (including rebates) from all suppliers.

Have you got any specific goods that you can only buy from one supplier? If so, it's worth checking if there are others, in case your supplier doesn't have enough stock one day or if the prices are still fair. Not sure if that would fall in with the rest of your project as that's more the work of a purchasing person, than of the purchase ledger department in the accounts, but just as an example.