It can be argued that accountants should spend their energies on
financial statements and not involve themselves in managerial report
creation and implementation. I believe excluding accountants in the
development of an information system is a disservice to the company.
Each department has their own objectives and goals, which produces
outcome data. The accounting department will thrive on their
accounting information system (AIS). Some of these outcomes may
overlap with other departments or need to be computed in a certain
way in order to stay in compliance with government regulation. An
example would be inventory. Inventory calculations are dependent on
the company’s policy to compute that asset as well as what oversight
they adhere to (US GAAP or IRFS). It the accounting department is
expected to only product a financial statement which would include
the inventory account. They would need access to that information as
well as work with those in inventory to ensure that what is being
inputted is in within the accounting guidelines. Although a positive to
not allowing accountants to be involved in the managerially aspect of
an information system would be that every department will have their
data without the headache of implementing a new companywide
enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. However, the negatives
outweigh the positives. Leaving the accountants out would mean
more than one system within the company collecting data.
Departments that need data from another department such as the
inventory example, may cause the need to input the same data into
multiple information systems, increasing the likelihood of human
error. Also, the maintenance of multiple information systems is costly
(Romney et al., 2020).
Accountants should be involved in the development and
implementation of an information system, especially a ERP system. A
company cannot operate effectively without cash flow. Accountants
track that. Like the example in our text book, Aston was able to map
out what was needed for S&S with the support of the owners. He
understood the various needs when it came to tracking payroll,
inventory, and lines of credit. He also knew that it wasn’t just him that
needed that information. Although he was the accountant in this
situation, he led the company into the implementation of ERP
(Romney et al., 2020).
Reference
Romney M. B., Steinbart P. J., Summers S. L., & Wood D. A. (2020).
Accounting Information Systems. [MBS Direct]. Retrieved from
https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/#/books/9780135573082/
