ACCOUNTING INFORMATION SYSTEM

Accounting Information System



Accounting Information System

1. Introduction

The phenomena marking the economic environment over the last decades have been under the sign of globalization, interdependence, and interaction. Whatever happens in any part of the world may have a minor or major impact on the local economic environment. Under these circumstances, any company regardless of its operations, size, and area of operation, has to prove its viability, capacity of communication, and adjustment with a view to achieving economic and financial performance that would make it increasingly competitive.

The development of the latest information and communication technology has led to building up company-integrated systems that make storage, access to, and transfer of information increasingly easier and more accessible. By implementing such systems, companies are enabled to build up flexible information infrastructures that arc easily adaptable to changes in their operational environment, hence revolutionizing their way of conducting operations (Andone et al. 2010).

Accounting is a formal language of business communication, which allows the company to be represented internally and externally. It should also be able to adjust quickly to the new global business environment undergoing continuous change and transformation. This adjustment would be impossible without the assistance of the new information technology and computer infrastructure revolving around the Internet. The use of communication networks and systems may he hazardous as it may encounter unexpected occurrences such as breakdown of communication systems, loss of information, or taking the wrong decisions. If we consider a corporation from this perspective, the accounting system is regarded as the most important element of the corporate information system due to the following reasons (Andone and Tabara, 2006):

• the accounting information system is the only system that allows management and external users to have an overall picture of the company;

• the accounting information system connects other major information subsystems such as marketing, human resources, research and development, production, etc., to such an extent that all the information provided by these subsystems may be expressed ultimately in financial terms;

• the non-financial information in areas such as social responsibility and human resources are integrated with the accounting information to allow the decision-making process;

• the integration of accounting with the other subsystems leads to offering more accurate information to users at a higher speed. The phrase information infrastructure refers to information resources, including communication systems, entities and people with expertise in the field. Examples of infrastructures are the corporate information infrastructure, the defense information infrastructure, the national information infrastructure as well as global information infrastructure (Aanestad et al. 2007).

2. Attackers

The main sources of risk the accounting information systems may face arc the people within a corporation and accidents or natural disasters. Moreover, people outside the company represent an important source of risk, in some cases, as they are more motivated and difficult to detect and investigate than the people inside the company.

The following 'agents' are likely to cause security-related problems to the accounting information system:

Employees. They are invested with trust and they have ...