HA2042 Accounting Information Systems

ASSESSMENT DETAILS AND SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Trimester	T3 2021
Unit Code	HA2042
Unit Title	Accounting Information Systems
Assessment Type	Assessment 2: Individual Assignment
Assessment Title	System Analysis and Selection
Purpose of the assessment (with ULO Mapping)	Students are required to: Understand and explain the place of an accounting information system in the context of the organizational structure and operating practices (ULO 2),Identify, analyse and compare different types of accounting information systems (ULO 3), and Use different methodologies to evaluate various accounting information systems (ULO 4).
Weight	30% of the total assessments.
Total Marks	30 Marks.
Word limit	No more than 2500 words.
Due Date	This written report is due in Week 09 on Friday, dated 28th January 2022, at 11:59 pm (Melbourne/Sydney) 10:59 pm (Queensland).   Late submission incurs penalties of five per cent of the assessment per calendar day unless the Hello Team has accepted the special consideration request before the assessment deadline.
Submission Guidelines	All work must be submitted on Blackboard in a single Word file by the due date, including the Assignment Cover Page.The assignment must be in MS Word format, double spacing, 12-pt Arial font and 2 cm margins on all four sides of your page with appropriate section headings and page numbers.Reference sources must be cited in the text of the report and listed appropriately at the end in a reference list using Adapted Harvard Referencing style. Please see the section Assignment Design – Adapted Harvard Referencing Section below.

Include a minimum of ten references, at least five from peer-reviewed journals relevant to the unit.

Assignment Details

Background

After finishing your Bachelor of Professional Accounting, you started your accounting consultancy in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. You got a high distinction in the HA2042 Accounting Information System and preferred to analyse the business processes, risks and internal controls. The CEO of your client is delighted with your services. In particular, your client company is currently evaluating its accounting system. The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of your client company thinks that they need to invest in cloud-based accounting software to support the growth of the business.

Company Selection and Requirements: You must prepare a report to evaluate and recommend a cloud-based accounting software for an Australian ASX-listed company of your choice (your client).1

Note: While selecting your client company, please try to choose the company that best suits the assumptions mentioned above.

The report should include the following components:

1.    Background

• Describe your client and its business activities.
  • Briefly describe the basic business activities involved in the revenue and expenditure cycles of the selected company.
  • And identify the weak internal controls in these business activities. Further, identify the risks associated with these weak controls.

2.    Systems requirements

• Outline the software features and functionalities that your client should consider to support its business activities.

3.    Software selection

• Visit the websites of at least two (2) accounting software package vendors (e.g. SAP, MYOB, Xero, etc.) and provide a brief description of each vendor and its products.
  • Compare and contrast the features/functionalities of two cloud-based accounting software packages offered by accounting software package vendors.
  • Identify the most suitable vendor and accounting software package for your client and explain why it is the best option.

Assignment Structure

The report should include the following components.

1 Alternatively, you can select any company listed on the stock exchange of your home country.

Holmes Institute Assignment Cover Sheet

Executive Summary

The executive summary should be concise and not involve too much detail. It should make commentary on the main points only and follow the sequence of the report. Write the Executive Summary after the report is completed, and once you have an overview of the whole text.

Contents Page

This needs to show a logical listing of all the sub-headings of the report. Note this is excluded from the total word count.

1.    Introduction

Typically, the introduction is a short paragraph that includes background, scope and the main points raised in the order of importance. There should be a brief conclusion statement at the end of the introduction.

2.Main Body Paragraphs with Numbered Sub-headings

This section contains detailed information which elaborates on the main points raised in the introduction. Each paragraph should begin with an exact topic sentence, then supporting sentences with facts and evidence obtained from research and finish with a concluding sentence.

The body of the report should contain sections to answer the above issues and with appropriate section headings

3.Conclusion

This section contains a logical and coherent evaluation based on a thorough and objective assessment of the research performed.

4. References

Include a minimum of ten (10) references, at least five (5) from peer-reviewed journals relevant to the unit.

5. Appendices

This section includes any additional explanatory information which is supplementary or graphical to help communicate the main ideas made in the report. Refer to the appendices in the main body paragraphs as and where appropriate. (Note this is excluded from the total word count.)

Note: The report should be grounded on relevant literature, and all references must be cited appropriately and included in the reference list.

Assessment Design – Adapted Harvard Referencing

Holmes will be implementing as a pilot program a revised Harvard approach to referencing. The following guidelines apply:

1. Reference sources in assignments are limited to sources that provide full-text access

to the source’s content for lecturers and markers.

• The Reference list should be located on a separate page at the end of the essay and titled: References.
  • It should include the details of all the in-text citations, arranged A-Z alphabetically by author surname. In addition, it MUST include a hyperlink to the full text of the cited reference source.

For example;

Hawking P, McCarthy B, Stein A (2004), Second Wave ERP Education, Journal of Information Systems Education, Fall, http://jise.org/Volume15/n3/JISEv15n3p327.pdf

• All assignments will require additional in-text reference details, which will consist of the surname of the author/authors or name of the authoring body, year of publication, page number of content, the paragraph where the content can be found. For example;

“The company decided to implement an enterprise-wide data warehouse business intelligence strategies (Hawking et al., 2004, p3(4)).”

Non Adherence to Referencing Guidelines

Where students do not follow the above guidelines:

1. Students who submit assignments that do not comply with the guidelines will be asked to resubmit their assignments.
2. Late penalties will apply, as per the Student Handbook each day, after the student/s have been notified of the resubmission requirements.
3. Students who comply with guidelines and the citations are “fake” will be reported

for academic misconduct.

Marking criteria
Marking criteria	Weighting in Total Grades
Describe your client and its business activities	3%
Evaluate the key business processes for your client	5%
Outline the software features and functionalities that your client should consider supporting its business activities	3%
Visit the websites of at least two (2) accounting software package vendors (e.g. SAP, MYOB, Xero etc.) and provide a brief description of each vendor and its products	5%
Compare and contrast the features/functionalities of two cloud-based accounting software packages offered by accounting software package vendors	5%
Identify the most suitable vendor and accounting software package for your client and explain why it is the best option	5%

Presentation	2%
Research quality	2%
TOTAL Weight	30%

Marking Rubric
	Excellent	Very Good	Good	Satisfactory	Unsatisfactory
	(80-100%)	(70-79%)	(60-69%)	(50-59%)	(0-49%)
Describe your client	An excellent	A very good	A good description of	An adequate	Inappropriate
and its business	description of your	description of your	your client and its	description of your	description of your
activities.	client and its business	client and its business	business activities.	client and its business	client and its business
(3 Marks)	activities.	activities.		activities.	activities.
Evaluate the key	Demonstrate an	Demonstrate a very	Demonstrate a good	Demonstrate an	Unable to present a
business processes for	excellent	good understanding of	understanding of key	adequate	proper discussion of
your client. (5 Marks)	understanding of key	key business processes	business processes for	understanding of key	key business processes
	business processes for	for your client in the	your client in the	business processes for	for your client.
	your client in the	discussion.	discussion.	your client in the
	discussion.			discussion.
Outline the software	Present an excellent	Present a very good	Present a good	Present a discussion	Unable to present a
features and	discussion on the	discussion on the	discussion on features	on features and	proper discussion on
functionalities that	features and	features and	and functionalities of	functionalities of	features and
your client should	functionalities of	functionalities of	accounting software	accounting software	functionalities of
consider supporting its	accounting software	accounting software	that your client should	that your client should	accounting software
business activities. (3	that your client should	that your client should	consider with minor	consider with errors	that your client should
Marks)	consider.	consider.	errors and/or	and/or omissions.	consider.
			omissions.
Visit the websites of at	Present an excellent	Present a very good	Present a good	Present a description	Unable to present an
least two (2)	description of	description of	description of	of accounting software	accurate description of
accounting software	accounting software	accounting software	accounting software	package vendors and	accounting software
package vendors (e.g.	package vendors and	package vendors and	package vendors and	their products with	package vendors and
SAP, MYOB, Xero etc.)	their products.	their products.	their products with	errors and/or	their products.
and provide a brief			minor errors and/or	omissions.
description of each			omissions.
vendor and its
products. (5 Marks)

Compare and contrast the features/functionalities of two cloud-based accounting software packages offered by accounting software package vendors. (5 Marks)	Present an excellent comparison of features and functionalities of two cloud-based accounting software packages.	Present a very good comparison of features and functionalities of two cloud-based accounting software packages.	Present a good comparison of features and functionalities of two cloud-based accounting software packages with minor errors and/or omissions.	Present a reasonable comparison of features and functionalities of two cloud-based accounting software packages with errors and omissions.	Unable to present a proper comparison of features and functionalities of two cloud-based accounting software packages.
Identify the most suitable vendor and accounting software package for your client and explain why it is the best option. (5 Marks)	Propose a choice of an accounting software package based on very strong arguments.	Propose a choice of an accounting software package based on strong arguments.	Propose a choice of an accounting software package based on reasonable arguments.	Propose a choice of an accounting software package based on weak or inadequate arguments.	Unable to propose a proper choice of an accounting software package or back the proposed choice with a valid argument.
Presentation. (2 Marks)	The report included all elements and is very well presented. The writing flowed clearly, and sections are linked very effectively. Referencing is exemplary. English is used very effectively and is error- free.	The report included all elements and is well presented. The writing flowed clearly, and sections are linked effectively. Referencing is of a high standard. English is used effectively with very few errors present.	The report included all elements and is generally presented appropriately. The writing flowed well in most of the cases, and sections are linked. Referencing is in accordance with guidelines. English is used effectively with few errors present.	The report included most elements and is adequately presented. Writing sometimes does not flow clearly, leaving the paper to seem disjointed in areas. Referencing is somewhat in accordance with guidelines. Basic English is used with some errors present.	The report lacked some elements and is poorly presented. Writing often does not flow clearly, leaving the paper to seem somewhat disjointed. Referencing is not entirely in accordance with relevant guidelines. Basic English is used with errors present.

Research Quality. (2 Marks)

An extensive amount of high-quality evidence from peer- reviewed journal articles and other sources is included and used effectively to support discussion.

A broad range of quality peer-reviewed journal references and other sources is included and used effectively to support discussion.

An adequate range of peer-reviewed journal references is included and used to support discussion.

An adequate range of peer-reviewed journal references is included and used to a basic extent to support discussion.

Little or no peer- reviewed journal references are included, and these are rarely used to support discussion effectively.

Academic Integrity

Holmes Institute is committed to ensuring and upholding Academic Integrity, as Academic Integrity is integral to maintaining academic quality and the reputation of Holmes’ graduates. Accordingly, all assessment tasks need to comply with academic integrity guidelines. Table 1 identifies the six categories of Academic Integrity breaches. If you have any questions about Academic Integrity issues related to your assessment tasks, please consult your lecturer or tutor for relevant referencing guidelines and support resources. Many of these resources can also be found through the Study Sills link on Blackboard.

Academic Integrity breaches are a serious offense punishable by penalties that may range from deduction of marks, failure of the assessment task or unit involved, suspension of course enrollment, or cancellation of course enrollment.

Table 1: Six categories of Academic Integrity breaches

Plagiarism	Reproducing the work of someone else without attribution. When a student submits their own work on multiple occasions this is known as self-plagiarism.
Collusion	Working with one or more other individuals to complete an assignment, in a way that is not authorized.
Copying	Reproducing and submitting the work of another student, with or without their knowledge. If a student fails to take reasonable precautions to prevent their own original work from being copied, this may also be considered an offense.
Impersonation	Falsely presenting oneself, or engaging someone else to present as oneself, in an in-person examination.
Contract cheating	Contracting a third party to complete an assessment task, generally in exchange for money or other manner of payment.
Data fabrication and falsification	Manipulating or inventing data with the intent of supporting false conclusions, including manipulating images.