Take these three papers and combine them

Riordan Manufacturing is a leading plastics manufacturer with operating entities in Georgia, Michigan, and California, as well as a joint venture in the People’s Republic of China. While all the operating entities maintain their separate finance and accounting systems, the various systems provide inputs which are then consolidated at the corporate office in California. The basic components of the each system consist of Accounts Payable processes, Accounts Receivable processes, sales, invoicing, and payroll, just to name a few. However, for the purposes of this paper we will focus on identifying the firm’s accounting cycle and selecting one accounting processes for review, that is, the expenditure cycle. We will also discuss, the strengths and weakness of the company’s internal controls as it relates to the expenditure cycle, how it would integrate into an enterprise-wide accounting information system, and the various types of information systems necessary to achieve this integration.

The term accounting cycle refers to the steps that are involved in accounting for all of the business activities during an accounting period which are then repeated for each reporting period. Specific to Riodan Manufactuing, their accounting cycle consist of the expenditure cycle, fixed asset cycle, financing cycle, revenue cycle, and a conversion cycle. The expenditure cycle encompasses all purchases and cash disbursments that are associated with the purchase and payment for goods and services. Some of the main functions of the expenditure cycle are requesting purchases, placing orders, recording accounts payable, checking statements from suppliers, and processing payments for purchased goods and services. The fixed assets cycle consist primarily of accounting for acquisitions, consumption, maintenance, and the disposal of fixed assets, while the conversion cycle obtains data from the expenditure cycle and uses it to correctly expense all produced items. All sales and cash receipts form part of the revenue cycle and the financing cycle encompases all the activites undertaken by the company to obtain capital funds such as issuing stock to investors.