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42505054 Sangeun HA

ACCG250 T10 Week11 Chapter 6 6.2) Explain two reasons accountants need to be familiar with systems documentation techniques. Two reasons a. As an accountant, you must be able to read documentation so that you can determine how the system works. b. Australian Auditing Standards (AAS) Paragraph. 95 requires that independent auditors understand a clients system of internal controls before conducting an audit. The auditor shall obtain an understanding of the information system, including the related business processes, relevant to financial reporting, including the following areas: -The classes of transactions in the entitys operations that are significant to the financial report. -The procedures, within both information technology and manual systems, by which those transactions are initiated, recorded, processed, corrected as necessary, transferred to the general ledger and reported in the financial report -The related accounting records, supporting information and specific accounts in the financial report that are used to initiate, record, process and report transactions; this includes the correction of incorrect information and how information is transferred to the general ledge. The records may be in either manual or electronic form; -How the information system captures events and conditions, other than transactions, that are significant to the financial report; -The financial reporting process used to prepare the entitys financial report, including significant accounting estimates and disclosures; and -Control surrounding journal entries, including non-standard journal entries used to record non-recurring, unusual transactions or adjustments The importance of documents a. Depicting how the system works. Studying and reviewing written descriptions of the inpits, processing steps, and outputs of the system make the job easier. b. Training users Documentation also includes the user guides, procedure manuals, and other operating instructions that help people learn how the AIS operates. c. Designing new systems Documentation helps system designers develop new systems in much the same way that blueprints help architects design buildings. d. Controlling system development and maintenance costs Good documentation helps system designers develop object-oriented SW, that is, programs that contain modular, reusable code. This object-orientation helps programmers avoid writing duplicate programs and facilities changes when programs must be modified later. e. Standardizing communications with others Documentation techniques such as flowcharts and data flow diagrams are standard industry tools, and they are more likely to be interpreted the same way by all parties viewing them. f. Auditing AISs Documentation helps auditors determine the strengths and weaknesses of a systems controls. g. Documenting business processes By mapping the business processes, documentation helps managers better understand the ways in which their businesses operate.

42505054 Sangeun HA

6.3 )Describe the information that can be obtained from each of these forms of systems documentations a) Process map It is a simple graphical representation of a system, detailing the activities that occur, the entities that perform the activities, the relationship between different activities and entities, and any decisions that occur as part of the process.

b) Context diagram It provides a representation of the system of interest and the external entities that interact with it, by either providing inputs or receiving outputs. It is an overview of the system of interests interaction with the external entities c) Physical DFD It takes the context diagram and expands it, to tell us the people, places and things that are involved in the system of interest, as well as the data flows that occur between these physical entities.

d) Logical DFD It takes the context diagram and expands it, to tell us what sequence of activities or processes occur within the system of interest and the data flows between these activities / processes. It is concerned with the logical perspective the tasks that get performed and not the people, places and things that are required in order to perform them e) Systems flowchart It provides us with both a logical and physical perspective of the system, depicting the entities involved and the processes they perform. In addition, we get details about how the processes are performed (for example a computer process versus a manual process). To this extent it represents a combination of the physical and logical data flow diagrams, but with more detail added.

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