ICAS - Intro to company

Whirlwind

Hi guys,

I am having a real problem with a paragraph from 'Introduction to the organisation'. I have to write a brief history of the accounting system I am investigating. My tutor has flagged this paragraph up twice (1st I wrote about the department as a whole, 2nd about staff in Accounts Receivable) and I am still struggling.

I have written a bit about the accounting system and how long it has been set up / not upgraded. I emailed my tutor over the weekend but haven't heard back from her - so hoping you guys can help!!

*Jo

When I did my unit 10 for the introduction I wrote briefly about the company I worked for that I was basing my project on.

I explained how the company was formed by the owner in 1971 and how it remained owned by the same family and how alot of the original staff remained.

I found some information on our company website to help me and I also briefly mentioned what we did (manufacture refractory materials) and how many staff there are etc etc.

If you have to introduce the system you use state which system is used and why it was choosen such as it is able to integrate with other functions such as word excel etc. State some of the functions it has, maybe it has an integral cashbook facility or an inventory management system. Say if it is able to export BAC's payments etc.

If you look on the softwares website it should give you some examples of descriptions of the system.

For example if the system you use is sage you could say something along the lines of....

Here at *company name* we use Sage *version* for our accounting software. The system was chosen due to its popularity and ease of use.
The functions of the software we use are....*list functions*.

Hopefully thats given you some very rough ideas.

Jo

Whirlwind

Thanks Jo!!

I have written a paragraph for company history and how they have developed, another on the structure of the accounts department - tutor happy with these. Its the third paragraph I am struggling with, or rather my tutor isn't happy with. I have written that the system not being upgraded, but I will definitely add something about the possible reasons of why the system was chosen/its functions.

Cracking on with it now!! Thanks again!!

*Jo

Another though I had was that your tutor may be asking you to write about the system procedure rather than the accounting system as it what methodology is followed. If you were basing your project on paying by bacs instead of cheques like I did you could write a description of how you current raise the cheques such as an invoice is checked by whoever, who then enters it on the system. The supplier statements are checked against the system by another person to ensure the invoices are entered correctly. Payments are made in accordance with supplier terms and such and such person enters the cheque details, a detailed distribution is printed off and checked by the FD to ensure payments are authorised before printing cheques etc etc etc.

If you are basing your project on your actual accounting software system you could also detail who has access to what areas of the system and why controls are in place to ensure no one can access sensitive information or mispost etc. You could also briefly explain how one aspect of the software is used i.e. posting invoicing and detail the steps taken to enter the invoices on the system along with the relevant checks by authority and any software problems that regulary flag up such as wont allow you to post to certain nominal codes or allows postings to be made without the double entry.

Jo

Whirlwind

Hi Jo,

I posted the query on the LearnPlus ICAS forum and she responded that it only has to be a couple of sentences and nothing complex about why we are investigating the system (outdated and unreliable). So as usual I am over thinking it!!

Thanks again!!