Question 1

Claudine works in Covered Pte Ltd as a Purchasing Executive in the purchasing department. The corporate purchasing policy states that she has to obtain at least 3 quotes from her suppliers before issuing the purchase order (PO). Claudine has access to the purchasing module of her company’s ERP system to create the Request For Quotation (RFQ) and PO.

Claudine logs into the ERP system with her ID and password and creates a new RFQ. She
selects the vendor from the system and then enters the items and quantity into the online form. She repeats this for every supplier to send the RFQ to. If any supplier is not found in the system, she sends an email to the Purchase Administrator to create a new supplier in the system.

She then prints and places the RFQs in a folder and routes this folder to her Purchasing Manager, Thomas, for approval. Thomas will remove each RFQ from the folder, review and approves each document; he may enter any remarks on the RFQ. All the approved RFQ will be placed in a folder and routed back to Claudine. For rejected RFQ, he will contact the purchase requester by email accordingly.

Claudine retrieves the approved RFQ documents from the folder, generates the softcopy of the PDF version of the RFQ from the system, and then attaches it to an email to the vendor for an official quotation. Analyze the request for quotation process described above, and develop a flowchart accordingly. State the assumptions made if any.

Question 2

(a) Demonstrate the benefits of documenting business processes in flowcharts to an auditor.

(b) Discuss the value to a business in investing in an Accounting Information System (AIS) from the perspectives of (i) the accountant, (ii) the Management, and (iii) the Auditor.

Question 3

“There is a growing trend from the traditional approach of monthly accounting closing process and financial statement reporting toward issuing financial statements on a real-time, updated basis. This is also made possible with advances in technology such as cloud computing. Management is also pressing their accounting departments for more timely and responsive financial information and ad-hoc analysis.”

Analyze the statement above and answer the following:

(a) Compare and contrast real-time accounting with periodic accounting in relation to the use of Accounting Information Systems (AIS).

(b) Discuss how a shift toward real-time financial statements will make the financial information more useful and relevant to businesses.