Question

Sam Walton and John Walton are two brothers who run their father’s 20-year-old business “Walton Brothers
Auto Solutions”. They have two divisions in their business. Sam looks after the workshop, where they service
new and used cars. Second division of business is retail of automotive parts, which is looked after by John.
Retail shop is located just 20 minutes away from car service workshop. Both sites are located in Sunshine
suburb of Melbourne. From last 2-3 years their business has been growing at a very fast pace.
Their business continues to use traditional means of reporting and heavily relies on paper based reporting
mechanism. However, as business is expanding fast so it is becoming difficult to keep up with the pace of
reporting requirements, need of timely information primarily in relation to costing, pricing and sales revenue for
their business. Margaret Jones is their bookkeeper; she spends considerable time for just maintaining the
books and journalising transactions in a traditional way. Many a times payments to suppliers are delayed and
payments from customers are not received by due date. On some occasions customers do not make payment
and Walton Brothers do not even chase all overdue payments in a timely manner due to using traditional
recording and reporting mechanism. In last couple of years business revenue has grown by more than 80%,
which then lead to increase in many expenses and other costs. Walton Brothers are facing cash flow issues
and are finding it hard to maintain a reputation of reliable operators.
Margaret advised Walton Brothers that they needed to improve their accounting systems and not using
computerised accounting software was one of the issues.

REQUIREMENTS
• Conduct an online research and suggest at least two accounting software that they can use. For both
software answer the followings:
o Explain how it will solve current problem
o Explain strengths and any weaknesses
o Explain cost to purchase and implement (software and hardware cost both)
o How is using a Accounting software different from using existing traditional Accounting
techniques

• Explain if any other computer based programme can be used to substantiate Accounting software’s. If,
yes how can they be more effective then using the Accounting software for daily Accounting processes
within an organisation.

Answer 1

Sam Walton and john Walton can use the following 2 software :-

1.) ZOHO Office suit

2.) Tally ERP

The above software can solve the current problem as they will automate the transaction processing as once the data get enter it will automatically processed and posted into their respective accounts.

Also, these software generate timely report as and when wanted, due to this all the balances can be chased in short time.

Strenghts :-

- Highly automated, minimum manual intervention

- reduce repition of enterering same data to different accounts

- Less chances of error

Weakness :-

- Accounting softwares are prone to risk of system failure.

- Data entered can be changed afterwards.

- complex to use as teaditional means.

Cost of softwares :-

These software can be taken on rent through Cloud service providers at very minimum cost.

If they are purchased and implement than it includes cost of software, training cost of staff, installation service charge. Which can be a costly affair.

Using a software is different from using traditional techniques as software involves use of computers while traditional involves use of paper. Software uses less human efforts and save cost and time as well whereas traditional means consumes a major part of working time.

Any other computer based software lets say SAP which is an type of Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. It automate every transaction in real time which means as and when occurs. Any reports any data can be seen through any type of charts to any authorize person at any level of management. Its also includes external data with internal data.