At work, we have multiple accounting information systems but the
main one we use is SAP. The payroll part of SAP makes it easy to
keep track of team members’ pay and to see the prior week’s
adjustments and checks. SAP makes it easy to run different types of
reports. The manufacturing part of SAP is based on the type of
access you need, I can make journal entries but cannot receive any
goods purchased (segregation of duties). All types of transactions can
be done in SAP, ordering, purchasing, and goods receipt. As of right
now, our work is done through different AIS but eventually, we are
going to move everything into SAP. I got to visit another location that
was working through SAP only and everything was working better.
b b While I believe SAP is great, I think it is important to have
good internal controls and to check the access that team members
have. It is important to make sure that one person doesn’t have too
much access since this can create issues and gives them the
opportunity to commit fraud. All people that have access to SAP
should be properly trained and should be trustworthy. I believe SAP
is a great AIS since it saves us a lot of time by letting us make journal
entries and grab information that we may need. Working in a big
company, and with all the accountants being able to post in each
other cost centers it is important to have a good system in place to
tie everything out and to verify after everyone is done posting their
entries.
