Control Problems & Frauds Possible In Current †Free Samples

Question: How to Control Problems and Frauds Possible In Current System? Answer: Introduction As the Japanese cuisine becomes more popular in Australia, Daiwa Food Corporation which is the major Japanese food importer has also set on growth trajectory in Australia. It supplies authentic range of Japanese foods items for retail consumption, hospitality and catering services. Initially started with 1 office, it opened second office in 2006 and now is having multiple sales offices (https://www.daiwafoodonline.com.au/ ). As it is expanding, maintaining stock, managing sales and resupply has become cumbersome task. This is the age of cloud computing and digitalization and Daiwa food is still using 2Clix for managing its requirements. However, the company has identified that with the growing needs, legacy software is not able to fulfill their needs and looking for further options. Currently, it is facing a lot of issues and unable to cope up with the increasing demand and complexity in the business processes and looking for a system that could simplify the things at Daiwa food and at the same time would not be too costly and does not take too much time to implement. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the issues faced by Daiwa food in depth followed by the discussion on various accounting software packages available in Australia and finally concluded by recommending a software package to Daiwa Food which is most closely aligned with its business process and help the company to support the growth. Analysis Current organizational structure Daiwa food is quite flat organization. It has 2 main office which reports directly to the CEO of the company. There are also HR and Finance departments that also reports to CEO and also manages the activities at individual office. Individual units are quite independent in taking the decisions and there is no intervention from the manager as long as the sales are good and company is growing. Figure 1: Current org structure at Daiwa foods Operational problems (e.g., inefficiency, errors) Daiwa food currently is using 2Clix which is very old software suitable for company that does not have much sales and operations are at small scale i.e. Small scale companies. Daiwa food started using this software and as the company witnessed tremendous growth due to the popularity of Japanese cuisine in Australia, it did not update its Information technology strategy and thus finding it difficult to manage the business operations. As the stock item list is increasing, system is also becoming very slow and ubale to provide the real time information what is available in the warehouse and this is making the order promising and order acceptance difficult for the company (Hayter, 1990). Also, there were many time stock outs which mean company was not able to deliver the food on time and this is something quite important in hospitality industry because no one wants their guest to wait for the food, be it hotel, or private party. Also, this existing software is unable to integrate with th e other accounting software used in the company which results in duplication. Data needs to be entered in both the systems since they are not integrated. Also, data conciliation has also become back-breaking task. Also, many times software becomes so slow that people do the transaction noting down it in excel and thinking to update in the software later point of time which is clearly quite inefficient approach and also prone to human errors (Venkatachalam, 2015). Apart from it decreased visibility of inventory, conciliation issues and manual transactions, there were many other issues like there is no security in the system. System should have different access for different roles like manager, employees, purchasing guy. Most suitable system acquisition method out of commercial software, custom software, or ERP? There are 3 options available for Daiwa food to upgrade its IT strategy which is ERP, custom software and commercial software. Out of these 3, ERP us not at all suitable because the business is not so huge and located in a single country. ERPs systems are expensive, take too much time to implement and often suitable for global companies. ERP systems are expensive and often needs another consultant company along with the ERP company for implementation (Zaheer, 2015). Also, Custom software are used for those companies whose business model is so unique that there is no product available in the market aligned to that business which is not the case here. Thus after ruling out the 2 options, the only option available is commercial software which is undoubtedly the best option with the advent of cloud. It is because such softwares are available on cloud and thus can be implemented quickly and they are also much more cost effective (Battisti, Deakings, Perry, Bensemann, Smallbone, 2011). Th ere are numerous such software available for food and beverage industry and company can consider choosing one of those software. Flowchart of the sales procedures The sales procedures are pretty much straightforward. Customer can order online or by visiting branch. They will simple select a product they want to order, add them in the card if it is online order or places order to executives if it is offline order and make payment. Once the payment is done, their order will be booked in the system and joins the queue for processing. After that if it is online order, it will be passed for delivery else it will be replenished at store. After that sales order is closed in the system and data is queued for transferring to general ledge during month end. For bulk orders or regular orders at hotels and other catering services, they can contact directly by email and get the quote by the company. Once they are satisfied with the quote, quote gets converted to sales order and order is fulfilled. Figure 2: Sales procedure at Daiwa Food Control problems and frauds possible in current system There is no control over the inventory. Some items have access inventory while some are facing stock outs. Management have the challenge in promising the date for the customers that have large quantity orders (Armstrong, Heenetigala, Clarke, Clark, Francis, Tatnall, Dai, 2010). There is no system of roles and responsibilities in the system. And anyone who has access to system has access to different data which can be a risk as well as threat for the company. Lack of reporting and dashboard systems in current systems for management Issue in data reconciliation since current accounting package does no integrate with 2Clix. As a result, data will be entered in both the systems which is a redundant and time consuming activity Accounting software Analysis Development of the accounting software packages In 1980s, Teleware and Intuit were the pioneers in the field of development of software accounting packages. However, the systems developed during that time are quite basic in nature with limited functionality but they have definitely open the scope for refining the accounting software. Intuit is based out of US while Teleware was founded in Victoria, Australia. Intuit emerged after acquiring many small companies that have finance software products and thus refined its product. Teleware developed MYOB which is the first accounting software developed in Australia. Teleware was brought by Best software Inc which then signed agreement with Data-Tech software, Australia to sell the MYOB licenses in Australia in 1999 (https://www.myob.com/au ). Around same time, Reckon accounting software also joined the league. Though it was founded little early in late 1980s it was introduced in 1993 in Australia. After some time in 2000, Saasu accounting package was also founded and release in Australi a in 2007. Xero product was launched in 2006. Though Xero joined late but it emerged as the strongest player in the Australia with tremendous growth rate. Sage ERP package was also came in the market in 1990s but it never scale up due to limited market in Australia and also this product is not supporting the localized requirements of Australia (Dimitriu, Matei, 2014). The current market size With the advent of Globalization, cloud computing and massive competition across the firms, companies which were reluctant to use the software earlier are also attracted or forced towards using the software due to increasing complexity in the processes and the zeal to survive. As a result, Australian accounting software industry has never seen such a massive growth in the past as it is experiencing now. Not only this, attractive pricing of cloud application as compared to on premise applications are also triggering growth. The current size of this industry is estimated around US $ 20 billion with expected increase of 4-5% for next 4-5 years (https://www.ibisworld.com.au ). Leaders in the market and their competitive advantage MYOB, being the oldest player in the market has the maximum market share and continue to be the leader. But if we go by the revenue growth in last few years, growth of Xero is clearly visible and it will supersede the MYOB in next few years. Xeros growth during 2015-2016 is 50% while MYOB grow at 35% and most of that are support engagements and not fresh implementations (https://acaciacs.com.au/comparison-table-for-myob-exo-vs-myob/ ). Xero product is quite good and customers are pretty much satisfied. MYOB has more experience in implementing its application on the premise but when it comes to Cloud, Xero is the leader. And as more and more companies are opting for cloud, it is benefitting Xero. MYOB was late in launching cloud products and that too are not as good as compared to Xero. Apart from MYOB and Xero which are the leading players, there are small players like Sage ERP, Reckon, QuickBooks online are some of the other products (Zhang, Nan, Li, Tan, 20116). Sage ERP is on dec line and more suitable for global companies which are now expanding to Australia. Reckon and QuickBooks online are growing among small companies at a good rate but still have a long way to go before they become comparable to MYOB or Xero. Current gaps or challenges encountered customers of accounting software/packages and recommendations Numerous accounting software exists in the market and most of them are quite successful and thus it is very difficult for company to choose the right one who is on the quest for selecting and implementing new system. Some of the critical requirements that drive the software selection process are to get the timely and current information about the inventory items in warehouse, functional security, ease of integration, ease of data reconciliation, automation to some mundane processes, accounting features, sales order management features. Based on this list, Xero will be the most aligned software. It has differentiated itself in the market in terms of cloud offerings and also the pricing is quite attractive (Gisch, Robertson, 2013). Xero has excellent functional security, backup features, easy to operate, rollouts are also easy in case in future Daiwa foods wants to open more offices and integrate them with current systems and there are enough customer. Also, there are enough testimoni als about Xero from customers having similar business model in Food and beverages (https://www.xero.com/au/ ). Conclusion This paper analyzed the current situation at Daiwa foods which sells Japanese cuisine. As the company is regularly clocking good growth numbers in last few years and increased revenue, its current IT systems are not capable of handling the current load which has causes chaos in the company. At present, company is not looking for new systems which fulfils its requirements and help the company to remain competitive by shifting its focus from operational work to strategic work. This paper then analyzed the various software and recommend the appropriate one which is aligned to the requirements of Daiwa. It also talks about the history of the software and the potential of the industry in coming years. References Armstrong, A., Heenetigala, K., Clarke, A., Clark, C., Francis, R., Tatnall, A., Dai, W. (2010). The use of Internet reporting for small business and accountants. Battisti, M., Deakins, D., Perry, M., Bensemann, J., Smallbone, D. (2011, January). Small business owner's capability to manage regulation and its relationship with compliancec. 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