1. Accounting Systems & Business Processes Chapter 4
ACCOUNTING INFORMATION SYSTEMS
The Crossroads of Accounting & IT 2nd Ed
Chapter 4
Accounting Systems
& Business Processes
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2. Imagine tracking activity you perform today on sticky notes that you post online and share with your friends... What if together with your friends you analyze and rearrange the stickies so that tomorrow you are more efficient? Business Process Management Meet Social Business
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3. Business Processes & the Accounting System
Accounting spans business processes in the value chain.
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4. Transaction Cycles
Each transaction cycle is expanded to show the transactions in the cycle.
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5. So you can get a head start by using a baseline accounting system with modules and transactions that are common to most enterprises.
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6. Baseline Accounting System
ABCs of Accounting
Accounting System =
Baseline Accounting System +
Customization
The baseline accounting system is a generic accounting system that includes the workflow and business processes frequently used by most enterprises. To create a customized accounting system, we configure or customize the baseline accounting system to accommodate the unique needs of the specific enterprise.
The baseline accounting system, such as the one shown here, can be customized to meet an enterprise’s specific needs. This customization is done by customization of the baseline’s processes.
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7. Accounting System Customization Using Business Process Mapping
Business Process Map Notations
Flowcharts
Data Flow Diagrams (DFD)
Unified Modeling Language (UML)
Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN)
A business process map can be drawn using different types of symbols and notations. Some of the standard notations are flowcharts, data flow diagrams, unified modeling language, and business process model and notation.
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8. Receive Customer Payments
Sales Cycle Processes
Receive Customer Payments
Create Invoices
Make Deposits
The Sales Cycle processes and the tasks shown on QuickBooks Home page for customer section.
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9. Flowchart Diagram for the
Sales Cycle Processes
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10. Data Flow Diagram for the
Sales Cycle Processes
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11. BPMN Diagram for the Sales Cycle Processes
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12. Flowchart Decision Process Document Process Flow
Flowchart Diagrams use five symbols:
Start/End
Decision
There are only five symbols (shown here) used in building flowchart diagrams.
When learning how to document business processes, flowcharts are a nice place to start. Then you can transition to UML or BPMN after you become more familiar with business process documentation.
Process
Document
Process Flow
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13. Customer Module: Create Invoices Flowchart Example
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14. BPMN 2.0
Some documentation tools, such as UML Diagrams may use over 100 different symbols. Introduced in 2011, BPMN 2.0 provides a business process mapping standard for bridging the gap between IT professionals and business users, such as accountants. BPMN 2.0 doesn’t require extensive training to use, making it a better choice for accounting professionals to understand and use to communicate with IT professionals. On the other hand, BPMN 2.0 provides greater detail than flowcharting to meet the needs of IT professionals for successful system implementation. So BPMN provides a balance between simplicity and complexity to facilitate communication between the accounting and IT professionals.
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15. Customer Module: Create Invoices BPMN 2.0 Example
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16. Reading a BPMN 2.0 Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 5 Step 6 Step 7
Who does What, When, Where & How?
Step 1
Identify the Start event that triggers the process.
Step 2
Identify the activities.
Step 3
Identify gateways where forking or merging data flows occur.
Step 4
Identify data objects.
Step 5
Identify data stores.
Step 6
Trace data flows.
Step 7
Identify the End event.
When reading a BPMN 2.0 you are basically attempting to answer the question:
Who does What, When, Where & How?
To do this, there are 7 steps:
1) Identify the Start event that triggers the process.
2) Identify the activities.
3) Identify gateways where forking or merging data flows occur.
4) Identify data objects
5) Identify data stores.
6) Trace the data flows.
7) Identify the End event.
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17. BPMN 2.0 Exercise For a bank ATM transaction, identify the following:
Swimlanes (major participants)
2. Activities
3. Gateways
4. Data Stores
5. Data Objects
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18. Guidelines for Well-Designed Business Process Map: Avoid Black Holes, Miracles, and Gray Holes
When building a business process map, there are some general guidelines to follow.
Notice that there should not be data flow between two data stores, two data objects, a data stores and a data object.
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19. BPMN 2.0 Exercise
Identify and list the errors that you see in this BPMN 2.0.
How many errors can you identify in this DFD?
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20. Building a Business Process Map
EspressoCoffee customers place an online order. EspressoCoffee processes the customer order by verifying the customer identity, verifying the items are available, and sending a request to the credit card company to verify the customer’s good credit standing. The shipment authorization is sent to the warehouse. The warehouse picks the items from stock. The items are shipped to the customer with a pick list enclosed. The warehouse notifies accounting that the items have shipped. Accounting generates an invoice from the sales information and s the invoice to the customer. The corresponding database tables are updated.
After learning how to read a business process map, the next step is to learn how to build one.
There are five steps to build a business process map
Step 1 is to write a narrative for the business activity. The narrative is just a brief description of the steps and actions taken.
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21. Building a Business Process Map
EspressoCoffee customers place an online order. EspressoCoffee processes the customer order by verifying the customer identity, verifying the items are available, and sending a request to the credit card company to verify the customer’s good credit standing. The shipment authorization is sent to the warehouse. The warehouse picks the items from stock. The items are shipped to the customer with a pick list enclosed. The warehouse notifies accounting that the items have shipped. Accounting generates an invoice from the sales information and s the invoice to the customer. The corresponding database tables are updated.
After the narrative is written to describe the process, the next step is to annotate the narrative to identify the activities.
Also notice that activities typically start with an action verb, such as process or generate.
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22. How Do I Build a DFD (Level 0)?
Step 3. Create a business process map organizer to organize activities
Step 3 is to create a table to summarize the information about activities, participants, gateways, data objects, and database tables needed.
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23. Building a Business Process Map
Step 4. Develop a business process map using information in the business process map organizer
Step 4 is to select one event from the EAD table and build a DFD for that one event. This can be referred to as a DFD fragment.
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24. Process Customer Order
Building a Business Process Map
Step 5. Repeat steps 1 through 4 for subprocesses as needed
Process Customer Order
Step 5 is to select one activity from the business process map organizer and build a business process map for that one activity.
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25. Process Map Exercise
Select an authentic enterprise of your choice and describe how the enterprise processes sales transactions with customers.
1. List:
Participants
Activities
Gateways
Data Objects
Data stores
Draw a flowchart and a BPMN 2.0 to document the sales transaction for the enterprise of your choice, showing activities, participants, data objects, data stores, and data flows.
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