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Accounting Information System and Manager's Decision Making

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Information System plays an influential role in determining the success of an organisation. The function of the information system is to collect, store and process data into information, through the assistance of a set of interrelated components. The processed information is later distributed to support decision making in an organisation (Oz, 2006). Information system can be decomposed to two main elemental subsystems namely as Accounting Information System (AIS) and Management Information System (MIS). AIS mainly process financial transactions of an organisation. However, it also processes some non-financial transactions that have a direct impact on the financial transactions. Contrastingly, MIS primarily process non-financial …show more content…

AIS helps organisation to occupy and sustain a strategic position by providing accurate information on a timely basis. Although AIS improves the value chain of an organisation, there existed a greater need of the integration of financial and non-financial events due to a dynamic competitive environment. Consequently, the advent of highly integrated set of standardised modules such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) enabled organisations to automate and integrate key organisational activities (Hall, 2008). Thus, the integration of both the financial and non-financial information system has radically enhanced the decision making process of an organisation.
The emergence of ERP systems has marked a commencement of a new era of efficient and productive decision making. These systems not only enabled the companies to integrate their key processes but also responsive to real time information (Al-Mashari, 2001). Thus, the implementation of information systems led to various perceived benefits such as augmented flexibility in information generation; improved quality of financial reports; increased application integration; and ease of database maintenance. Thus, the effect is felt on organization planning and decision making at all levels in an organization. (Spathis and Constantinides, 2003). Hence, organisations are forced to stay up to date with new technologies for its survival.

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