Manual Accounting Versus Computerized Accounting
Proceedings of International Conference on Accounting Education Reform and Development Conference —James
As many professional accountants and auditors state - accounting is a language of business which is accepted in all developed and developing countries. Every company applies accounting because it is generally accepted that companies have to reveal certain financial and management information to the government and public users and of course because accounting is indispensable tool in business decision-making process. With the development of information technologies there were developed many computer products (software) that make accounting as easy as ABC for those who uses them. From this point accounting can be divided into two basic categories:those which apply manual accounting and those which prefer computerized accounting systems. This paper is targets the main features of manual and computerized accounting, their benefits and shortcomings, and their comparison.
From the accounting theory it is known that accounting cycle includes the following steps: journalizing the transactions, posting them to ledger accounts, preparing trial balance, making adjustment entries, preparing adjusted to end-of-period trial balance , preparing financial statements and appropriate disclos
ures, journalizing and posting the closing entries, and preparing after-closing trial balance at last. From the first look it is not very difficult and it is so indeed, but when there are thousands or millions of transactions the situation dramatically changes. Lots of transactions that must be processed in the accounting cycle make this process routine and even a little mistake or inaccuracy can cause all the cycle from the very beginning in order to find and correct the mistake. So as to shed some light on the matter lets examine accounting cycle more thoroughly. Every transaction (event that change the financial resources or obligations of the company) must be recognized, classified and documented; in addition there must be corresponding accounts identified and changed. The transactions are recorded in appropriate journals (general journal, sales journal etc) with transaction data, affected accounts? titles, debit and credit of each affected account and explanation specified in the journal record. The above procedure is used for each transaction.
All the journal records must be posted to the ledger on a periodic basis (daily or weekly), which is a group of accounts put together and classified (assets, liabilities, revenue, expenses and equity) ? in other words general ledger summarizes all the transactions within a period of time. In addition there is a subsidiary ledger can be used, which is a more detailed source, where individual items comprised (inventory, accounts payable and accounts receivable). General ledger contains controlling accounts w
hich summarize the content of subsidiary ledger. At the end of accounting period with the help of general ledger there is a trial balance calculated to make sure that debit and credit are in balance (if they are not equal it means that there is an error somewhere). Then there must be appropriate adjustments made like depreciation and income tax expenses, adjusted records posted to the ledger and adjusted trial balance calculated. After this there are financial statements should be prepared, which include balance sheet, income statement, statement of retained earnings and statement of cash flows. Then journal entries of temporary accounts are closed to permanent accounts and posted to the ledger, and at last after-closing trial balance can prepared.
In order to stay on top companies have to analyze the performance of all organizational cells (starting from unskilled workers and operating personnel, and finishing with top managers and other key personnel) and discover all the deviations from the plan, their causes, and finally companies? management has to take corresponding measures to avoid such deviations in the future. These procedures are called internal controls and include the following five elements: control environment, risk assessment, monitoring, information and communication, which are assessed separately and put together a single rate of organization's performance. Control environment means the way of organization's internal control? which manager controls the employees, how and whom does that man
ager reports next about the plan performance etc. Risk assessment implies measures to determine all the potential risks in advance, their causes, probabilities and counter-measures to avoid and manage them; how can those risks influence company's performance and financial state; how to minimize the costs of facing financial risks etc. Monitoring implies quality control of company's operations and personnel. Information and communication element means the control over communication flow and the quality of information flow within the organization in order to minimize the time of communication and information losses. Internal control procedures
allow to keep companies? assets from dissipation and control productivity and usefulness of all departments.documented翻译
Let's return to the main issue of the paper. Manual accounting implies that employees perform the whole accounting cycle manually on a periodic basis: they calculate trial balances, journalize transactions, prepare financial statement reports and other routines. Of course it takes much time, resources and effort in large organizations. Computerized accounting implies that the only thing that employees do is recording transactions into the computer which processes the other steps of accounting cycle automatically or by a request. But this is a very simplified view on the computerized accounting because transaction is a complex category which includes not only sales or acquisitions, b
ut depreciation, premiums and wages calculation, dividends etc. So computers provide accurate calculations and smart reports but it takes much time, resources and effort too and it ' s difficult to assess which accounting type is more fast and economic. If manual accounting requires qualified accountants to keep a record of business transactions, computerized requires accountants which can use specific software and thus they cost more. Computer software calculates faster but it does not know what you need until you can clearly explain what exactly you need. In addition good computerized accounting system can cost thousands and even millions dollars, depending on the complexity and the size of organization. Computerized accounting provides better internal control report system for any given period of time (computer can control thousands indicators simultaneously and create notifications to the appropriate departments or workers if some indicators do not correspond to the normal state), while manual control takes more time.
Among the advantages of manual accounting there are: comparatively cheap workforce and resources, reliability, independence from machines, skilled workers availability; the disadvantages include: reduced speed, increased effort of accountants, relatively slower internal control reporting, routine work and some others.Among the main advantages of computerized accounting there are: high speed and mobility of reporting, reliability, no routine work, increased accuracy, internal control system
of increased productivity, easy back up and restoration of records; the disadvantages include: extremely
high costs on developing, introducing and using the system, special trainings for personnel, increased personnel costs, dependence on machines etc.Obviously both computerized and manual accounting have advantages and disadvantages but they perform the same task, and the final result is the same. The main differences between them are the costs , speed and mobility. Thus small and medium businesses usually prefer manual accounting without detriment to quality while large corporations apply complex accounting systems which cost millions dollars but the effect from their application exceeds all the expectations.
手工会计与电算化会计
会计教育改革与发展—第四届会计与财务问题国际研讨会论文集
2004年詹姆斯
就像很多专业的会计师和审计师的国家—在所有发达国家和发展中国家，会计是被接受的一种商业语言。大家普遍认同，公司向政府和公众用户已披露的某些财务和管理信息，是每家公司所适用的会计。
而且当然，在业务上的决策过程中会计是不可缺少的工具。随着信息技术的发展，有很多发达的计算机产品（软件），就像美国广播公司那样使用它们，使会计变得简单。从这点会计可分为两个基本类别：手工会计和电算化会计系统。本文的主要目标，手工会计和会计电算化，其好处和缺点，以及它们的比较。
根据会计理论，众所周知的会计周期包括以下步骤：分录交易过程中，分类账户，准备试算表以调整作品，准备调整，以期末试算表，编制财务报表，并适当披露，结束后关闭试验的平衡。从第一次看它确实不是很困难，不过当有数千或是以百万计的交易时形势急剧变化。大量的交易，必须进行处理，在会计周期，使这一进程例行甚至有点错误或不准确就会造成一切周期从头开始寻和纠正错误。从而一些线索让审查会计周期更加彻底。每一笔交易（改变了财政资源或义务的公司）必须承认，分类以及证明；除此之外一定有符合识别而且改变的账户。交易记录在适当的期刊（一般杂志，销售日报等）的交易数据，被受影响的账户所记录。名称，借方和贷方的每一个受影响的账户和解释，指明在日记中纪录。上述程序是用于每笔交易。所有的日记记录必须定期（每天或每周）张贴到总分类账，它是一组整理和分类（资产，负债，收入，费用和所有
者权益）的帐目，或者换句话说总分类账总结了在一段时间内所有的交易。此外，还有一个附属总账可以用，这是一个更详细的资料来源，如个别项目包括（存货，应付账款和应收账款）。在年底的会计期间与帮助的总分类账中有一个试算表计算，以确保借方和贷方的平衡（如果它们不是相等的，它意味着
某处有错误）。那么，必须有适当的调整，如折旧及所得税费用，调整后的记录张贴到总账并且用试算表计算出来的。经过这之后准备财务报表，其中包括资产负债表，利润表及现金流量报表。然后日常记录的临时帐户张贴到总帐，最后关闭试算平衡表。
为了保持公司有效运作，对所有的组织（由非技术工人和经营人员，高层管理者和其他关键人员）的表现进行分析，发现有偏离计划，其原因是否在于公司。管理部门也采取相应措施以避免这种偏差，这些程序就是所谓的内部控制，主要包括以下5个要素：控制环境，风险评估，监测，信息和沟通，这些都是另行评估，除此之外提出了一个单一税率的组织。控制环境指的组织管理方法，在内部控制中，经理如何管理员工以及对明年的计划工作表现等进行风险评估，意味着措施，以确定所有潜在的风险。如何避免风险使之不影响公司？如何减低成本来应对所面临的金融风险等方面的监管，意味着公司对内部管理的控制。信息和通信单元是指控制通讯流量和质量，信息流在本组织内，以最大限度减少时间的沟通和信息的损失。内部控制程序能够保持公司的有效运作吗？
手工会计意味着会计人员以周期的方式用手运行整个的会计周期：他们计算，试算表，日记交易，编制财务报表和其他套路。当然，在大的范畴内，这需要更多的时间，资源和精力。但是利用电算化会计在会计周期内就只有一件事，员工做的是记录交易纳入计算机程序中其他步骤的会计周期自动或由请求。不过，这是一个非常简化的看法，电算化会计，因为交易是一个复杂的类别，其中不仅包括销售或收购，还有折旧，保险费和工资的计算方法，分红等，让计算机提供准确的计算和智能报告，但需要花多
少时间，资源和精力，它又有何困难，从而判定哪一种会计制度类型更为快捷和经济。如果手工会计规定，合资格的会计师，只要求保存记录的商业交易就可以了。但在电算化会计中，计算机不仅需要会计师，而且必须使用特定的软件，因此他们的成本更多。计算机软件，计算快、效率高，但它不知道你的需要，直到你能解释清楚，究竟你需要的是人还是软件时，再来决策你需要用手工会计还是电算化会计。会计电算化系统提供了整个公司的运作，但是成本却要数千甚至数百万美元，复杂程度和规模的组织。

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