ACC 315 Week 1 Accounting Systems and Software Selection Example

Leaving the Spreadsheet Behind: Comparing Three Accounting Software Options for a 14-Employee Commercial Cleaning Company and Recommending One

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

ACC/315: Accounting Software Systems

Week 1 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The company, its figures and the vendor quotes are composites written for a model paper; research findings come from the sources listed.

A composite commercial cleaning company serves about 60 offices, clinics and small retail sites under recurring monthly contracts. It employs 14 cleaners and two supervisors and has grown from a two-person business in five years. Its records have not grown with it. Invoices are typed from a template, customer payments are logged in a spreadsheet and the owner's spouse spends two full days each month reconciling the spreadsheet to the bank statement. Payroll is handled by a separate service that sends a summary the bookkeeper retypes. The business does not lack information; it keeps the same information in four places and trusts none of them. This paper describes what an accounting information system should do for this company, compares three software options and recommends one.

What an Accounting Information System Does

An accounting information system collects data about business events, processes it into records and reports and protects the assets and data involved (Romney et al., 2021). Software does not change the logic of accounting. Every sale still produces a debit and a credit, the general ledger still summarizes every account and the trial balance still must balance. Sangster (2016) traced double-entry bookkeeping to merchants in fifteenth-century Italy, and the rules those merchants used are the same rules any modern package applies behind its screens. What software changes is speed, the chance of arithmetic error and the ability to see results the same day rather than at month end.

For this company the system has five jobs: bill clients each month and track who has paid, pay suppliers of cleaning products and equipment, pay 16 employees every two weeks with correct withholding, show profit by client so the owner knows which contracts to reprice and give the outside accountant clean records for tax returns.

Three Options Compared

The first option is a widely used cloud product aimed at small businesses. It supports recurring invoices, online payment links, bank feeds, class and location tracking for profit by client and an optional payroll add-on. The second is another cloud product popular with accountants, with strong bank reconciliation, unlimited users on most plans and payroll through a partner integration. The third is a desktop product installed on one office computer, with deep inventory and job features but remote access only through a hosted service at extra cost.

Seven criteria come from the company's needs. On recurring invoicing, both cloud products meet the need; the desktop product can memorize invoices but requires someone at the office computer. On payroll, the first cloud product runs payroll inside the same system, while the second relies on a connected service, which means two logins and a mapping step. On profit by client, all three can tag transactions, but the first product's class tracking matches the way the owner already thinks about contracts. On bank feeds and reconciliation, the second cloud product is strongest. On outside accountant access, both cloud products allow a free accountant user; the desktop product requires sending a backup file. On cost, the composite quotes the owner received put the two cloud products within a few hundred dollars a year of each other once payroll is included, while the desktop product costs less up front but more once remote hosting is added. On learning curve, the bookkeeper has used the first cloud product at a previous job.

Internal Control and Security

The current workbook has no record of who changed what. Anyone who opens it can edit a payment or delete an invoice without a trace. For a business where supervisors collect some payments in person, that is a real exposure. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (2024) found that small organizations suffered median losses comparable to much larger ones and were less likely to have basic controls in place. Both cloud products keep an audit log of every change, allow separate user roles so a supervisor can create invoices but not delete payments and require multifactor sign-in if the owner turns it on. Ashbaugh-Skaife et al. (2007) found that control weaknesses were more common in smaller firms with fewer resources, which argues for using the controls the software provides rather than treating them as optional settings.

Security also means keeping data if a vendor has an outage or the company changes products. The owner should export a full backup of reports and the general ledger each quarter and store it outside the vendor's system.

Recommendation

The first cloud product best fits this business. It meets every need on the list, runs payroll in the same system, supports profit by client in a way that matches the owner's contracts and is familiar to the bookkeeper. The second cloud product came close, and its reconciliation tools are better, but payroll through a separate service would recreate the retyping problem the business is trying to end. The desktop product would suit a company with inventory and one office, not a business whose supervisors work in the field.

Conversion Plan and Risks

The switch should take place at the start of the next quarter so that opening balances come from a reconciled quarter end. In the four weeks before, the bookkeeper will build the chart of accounts, enter the client list with contract terms, enter open invoices and unpaid bills and set up payroll with year-to-date figures for each employee. For the first month the old workbook will be kept in read-only form as a check. The main risks are errors in opening balances, payroll year-to-date totals entered incorrectly and staff resistance to a new routine. A short checklist signed by the owner, and a trial balance compared with the old records at the end of the first month, reduce each of them.

Conclusion

The company's problem is duplicated records and weak control, not missing software features. A cloud accounting system with payroll inside it, class tracking by client and user roles with an audit log addresses both. Graham et al. (2005) reported that managers value smooth, reliable reporting; for a small business the same idea applies on a smaller scale, since an owner who trusts the numbers can reprice contracts, plan hiring and answer a lender's questions with confidence.

References

Ashbaugh-Skaife, H., Collins, D. W., & Kinney, W. R., Jr. (2007). The discovery and reporting of internal control deficiencies prior to SOX-mandated audits. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 44(1-2), 166-192. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacceco.2006.10.001

Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. (2024). Occupational fraud 2024: A report to the nations.

Graham, J. R., Harvey, C. R., & Rajgopal, S. (2005). The economic implications of corporate financial reporting. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 40(1-3), 3-73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacceco.2005.01.002

Romney, M. B., Steinbart, P. J., Summers, S. L., & Wood, D. A. (2021). Accounting information systems (15th ed.). Pearson.

Sangster, A. (2016). The genesis of double entry bookkeeping. The Accounting Review, 91(1), 299-315. https://doi.org/10.2308/accr-51115