STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM

Strategic Information System

Strategic Information System

Part A:

How does SOX affect the provision of attest and advisory services?

There is an adverse impact of the SO on the provision of asset and advisory services. Before the passage of SOX, it was allowed to the accounting firms to give the advisory services to mainly the audit clients. However, the implementation of the SOX legislation has resulted in the imposition of the types of non-audit services which could be rendered by the auditors in the audit clients (Abdolmohammadi, 2012, p. 23). The SOX legislations have considered this as an unlawful act that the registered public accounting firms which are currently indulged in the activities of attest service provision for the client to render the given below services to the clients:

Fairness opinion,

Financial Information System Design

Contribution-in-kind reports

Internal audit outsourcing services

Management functions and human resources

Investment adviser

Legal services

Actuarial services

Expert Service

Thus, the imposition of the SO has badly affected the provision of attest and advisory services which were allowed before the implementation of SOX legislation.

Compare and contrast the relative advantages and disadvantages of sequential, block, group, alphabetic and mnemonic codes.

There is a great appropriateness of the sequential codes for the items which are used in both the descending and ascending manners. These items are mainly the numbering of checks or source documents. One of the advantages of sequential codes is that it is helpful during the batch processing in the detection of any gaps detection and is considered to be a signal of the missing transaction. However, there is also a disadvantage of the sequential code. The main disadvantage is that the codes carry little; it does not provide the other information instead of the sequence order. However, there is also another disadvantage in the sense that it is difficult to properly manage the sequential codes (Gucht, 2010, p. 12). In the case of adding the items, there is a need to record the sequence need or there is also a need to add the items at the end of the list.

The block codes are also essential in providing the remedies to sequential codes by imposing restrictions on each class so that the pre-specified range could be developed. The first digit is typically the representation of the class; on the other hand, the other digits are considered to be a sequential item which is necessary to be spaced in the intervals in the cases when there is a need of future additions. One of the examples of block coding is considered to be the chart of accounts. There is also a disadvantage of the block coding in the sense that there is no allocation of the meaning in the information content i.e. the account number is only used in the cases if there is a knowhow of the chart of accounts (Ghosh, 2008, p. 10).

However, the group codes are also used in the proper representation of the complex events and items with the increased involvement of two or more pieces of related ...