Small Medium Enterprises Implementations

Question: Discuss about the Small Medium Enterprises Implementations. Answer: Introduction The reports of the past data reflect that almost every size of business entity is implementing the accounting software to maintain a complete track of the internal and the external database. In the framework of the existing subject line Abusaimeh (2014) reflects that the distribution and the development, accounting software in the Australian market have changed the entire database record system. The companies have become highly dependent on the effecting internal process of the accounting software in the Australian market. Yilmaz (2015) figured out that the Australian entities widely use the payroll and the accounting software packages. The survey, conducted over the SMEs (Small Medium Enterprises) reflects the 85% of the organisations prefer using the accounting software to maintain an accurate base of internal and external records. However, Yilmaz (2015) determined that the conservative business owners and the one with the limited technical knowledge are expected to continue with the traditional technical process. However, arguing the latter context, Parthasarathy and Sharma (2016) asserted that the entrepreneurs recruit several technicians in the IT (Information Technology) department to remain updated with the modern information base. Therefore, the entrepreneurs instruct the control unit to investigate on the viability of the IT software proposed by the IT person. By the feedbacks, the technical software is implemented within the internal process. Therefore, the importance of the accounting software is highly recognised by both the conservative and the modern entrepreneurs. The existing study aims to determine the efficacy of the accounting software and the market leaders operating in the specific division. History and the development of the accounting software In the late 1950 and early 1960, the Mega Corporation has taken the initiatives of handling the data that rivalled the requirements of the governing authority (Yilmaz, 2015). The corporation has faced several issues in handling the database in the cost effective software. Due to the repetitive and heavy volume of the financial and accounting data, the database has become the prime candidate for the automation procedure. IBM established the initial programming language by forming a rational database and stored the structured data within the computers. Therefore, the users experienced less issue regarding the data accessibility procedure. According to Abusaimeh (2014), SAP has been developed in 1973, which designed the product lines with the modular methods to increase the swiftness in the database tracking system. The foremost objective behind implementing the software is to have quick access to the database, solving the computations, sorting the complications in the database and acce ssing the database in a sequential manner. In 1981, Peachtree offered the initial integrated office suite, where the word processor and excel sheet were included. Moreover, Intuit has also discovered its first spreadsheet, which the users find effectively useful to maintain the database. Some of the spreadsheets were attached with the excel file, where the users can apply the data in the spreadsheets and keep a backup of the database within the Excel sheets. Accounting softwares market size in the Australian region Intuit, MYOB and Xero are major market leaders of accounting software in the Australian market. In the particular inference, Yilmaz (2015) specified that zero has its operation in the global context, whereas, MYOB has its operation single in the domestic region. The management of the enterprise has declared to have captured 15% of the share nationally. The personality further claimed of having a significant momentum of the dynamic workplace with a total base of 250,000 customers and 10,000 partners (Parthasarathy and Sharma, 2016). Figure 1: Xeros market price (Source: www.afr.com, 2016) In the existing context, Wu and Cao (2016) determined that share price of Xero has closed at $17.75. The price has reached to the maximum margin of $25.60 in March 2016. Conversely, Parthasarathy and Sharma (2016) asserted that the Intuit has managed to capture 80% of the Australian market with its QuickBooks app. On the contrary, an inference can be derived that MYOB has managed to increase its share price within the range of $ 831.7 to $ 833.8million, which reflects an indicative price range of $3 - $4 in the IPO context (www.afr.com, 2016). The previous reports also determine that almost $250 million of the start-ups are using the Xero software for the database tracking purpose. The market leaders in the accounting software segment Xero exclusive manages to consume 65% of the Australian market share in the accounting software division, whereas MIYO has captured only 20% of the shares and the left out figure is engaged by the other enterprises (Protogeros et al. 2011). Accounting software is not only limited to the inventory tracking and account management purpose, but it has also grown to the level of providing the cloud-based services to the companies with lucrative services (www.businessinsider.com.au, 2016). Intuit has managed to capture 80% of the Australian market with its QuickBooks app (Abusaimeh, 2014). Xero is a New Zealand based enterprise that has turned into an Australian giant for the accounting software segment. It has managed to gather 400,000 customers all over the world and proceeded with $240 billion of transactions and 95 million of invoice. Factors that are leading the enterprises to attain the competitive positioning Inventory management: The accounting software package often facilitates the enterprise with the inventory data management system. This software keeps the detailed record of the products and the services. Starting from the production to the distribution of the product is managed and stored in the system. The products like the raw materials, the equipment and tools, the sales based records, everything is managed intensely in the specific system. Due to its easy functionality, the software becomes easy to access (www.afr.com, 2016). Payroll management The software not only maintains the financial records, but it entails on the diversified functional process. According to Yilmaz (2015), the HR personnel can maintain the entire seconds of the internal resources and the compensation division of each of the employees. Therefore, the majority of the SMEs and the well-developed organisations are taking the help of the accounting software to have a data accuracy backup. Challenges and issues faced by the customers with the accounting software Accounting software is highly beneficial for creating and implementing a robust data management system. Presently, it has been found that the accounting software is giving too many problems to the users. Lack of Security The software developers are very much concerned about the security of data. It has been observed that the entire small and big business unit are currently using accounting software and having a tendency to switch towards the cloud-based system (Ciftci, 2010). Hence, lack of data security comes in front of the system as the firewalls do not have enough capability to solve the entire problems. The inefficient service of the firewall and along with inefficient service of the software creates the data security issues. In the opinion of Krishnan and Wang (2014), some accounting software products are not user-friendly and do not permit the users to use the keyboard and mouse. Thus, lack of efficiency is the other major reason for providing low security. Weak Reporting Services The accounting software solution is powerless in assisting the users and the other clients while the people want to get back the required information (Protogeros et al. 2011). Thus, the users get irritated as it is not simple to fetch out the data. The other accounting software does not allow the software products to retrieve the data or import the data as per the necessity. Recommendations to improve the above issues 24/7 Technical supports It is essential to resolve the problems of the customers associated with accounting software within one business day. The accounting software manufacturing firm would need to hire a team who support the clients apart from the business hours (Tankard, 2012). The support team has to provide a contact number to make contact with the customers for fixing the problems on an immediate basis. According to the opinion of Yilmaz (2015), the best support is always a face-to-face session. But in some cases, support through the phone call could be more appropriate to secure the issues of the clients. This process would also be helpful to improve the customer relationship management of the organisation. Improve the software comparability Considering the opinion of Krishnan and Wang (2014), it has been observed that many accounting software is not compatible with the other software programs. For an example, the software developer would require improving the data import and export system, so that the users could easily retrieve the required data. It has been identified that there are many programs which can easily retrieve the data set as per the requirement (Yilmaz, 2015). Hence, the developers of accounting software would need to reconstruct the features of the software for improving the software comparability. Conclusion The preliminary analysis of the study indicates that the accounting software is highly a useful software program to manage the data set. While conducting the study, history of accounting software in Australia has been analysed in the research. It has been speculated that Xero, Intuit and MYOB are the market leaders in Australian accounting software market. These organisations have a huge turnover for establishing a sustainable market position. The challenges such as Lack of Security and Weak Reporting Services are the main issues faced by the customers with the accounting software. Finally, the strategic recommendations like 24/7 Technical supports and Improve the software comparability would be beneficial both for the developers and users to improve the challenges of the accounting software. References: Abusaimeh, H. (2014) Cloud web-based operating system (cloud web os), International Journal of Computer Science and Information Technology, 6(2), pp. 4150. Ciftci, M. (2010) Accounting choice and earnings quality: The case of software development, European Accounting Review, 19(3), pp. 429459. Heber, A. (2015) The cloud accounting supremacy war in Australia. Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/charts-the-battle-for-supremacy-in-australias-cloud-accounting-market-2015-4 (Accessed: 14 September 2016). Krishnan, G.V. and Wang, C.J. 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