HA2042 – Accounting Information Systems

You are to prepare a submission to satisfy
your client’s requirements as outlined below. You are

required to investigate the issues at
Pressure Hydraulics and provide a feasibility study into the

improvement to their current business
processes. You will need to conduct an investigation into the

client’s problems and evaluate a solution
to meet their business needs.

Overview – Pressure Hydraulics

Pressure Hydraulics is a locally owned
business that currently has three service centres; Newcastle,

Toronto and Maitland. Each service centre
provides maintenance and specialised servicing of

hydraulic systems as used in cars, trucks
and earth moving equipment. The Maitland service centre

also provides a specialty service to the
mining industry where two purpose built trucks go onsite to

service a range of mining equipment.

The business has become quite profitable in
the past years and its owner, Allan Taylor, has devised

plans to expand by opening service centres
at Coffs Harbour and Gosford. Allan has future plans for

other service centres along the east coast
of NSW. He also feels that the time is right to look at how IT

can support the existing business and
enable his future business plans.

Currently, Allan spends a portion of each
day at each service centre to monitor its operations. This is

leaving little time to continue developing
his business and he realises he will not be able to spend the

same sort of time in the Coffs Harbour and
Gosford service centres.

Existing System

Each service centre operates as an
independent business, with eight technicians in the workshop (one

of whom is a workshop foreman) and one
office assistant. The office assistant takes phone calls from

people requesting quotes for work or to
have work done. For requests on quotes, the office assistant

looks up a hard copy of a price book (known
as The Price Book) and gives a verbal quote. Allan is

unhappy with the time being taken to update
the Price Book as the office assistant is often too busy to

update the prices from the supplier
invoices. Sometimes, this time delay results in either lost sales if

the price has gone down or lost income if
the price has gone up.

If a customer phones to make a booking for
work to be done, the office staff assistant writes down the

details in a journal (Works Book). Any
variations to the Works Book by a customer requesting to

change a date/time results in crossed out
entries. There have been times when this has been the cause

of misinterpretation as to when a job is
booked in. Other problems with the system include occasional

overbooking or slack periods for the
workshop staff.

When a customer arrives at a service centre
for work to be done, the office staff member writes out a

Job Card with the customer details along
with the price from The Price Book for the job. There is

sometimes a discrepancy between what the
Price Book shows and what the customer says they were

quoted for that particular work. When
completed, the Job Card is passed to the workshop foreman

who assigns the job to a technician. When
the job is completed, the technician initials the Job Card

and gives it back to the workshop foreman,
who returns it to the office. The office assistant writes out

an invoice and collects payment from the
customer; cash, EFTPOS and credit card are acceptable

forms of payment. Once per week, the office
assistant uses the Job Cards to prepare an order for stock

replacement.

Allan has developed a business relationship
with several transport companies where two technicians

will go to the transport companies’ central
site and service the hydraulics on a truck. As the parts

required to perform the service can be
varied, a special van equipped with basic workshop equipment

and a full range of component parts is
used. The time taken for these jobs can be varied and unpredictable. Upon
returning from such a job, the technicians will alert the workshop foreman that

the job has been completed. The office
assistant is then informed and an invoice written out and

mailed to the transport company. Carbon
copies are used to track such invoices. The Maitland service

centre provides a service to the mining
industry and there have been a few repeated issues with the

incorrect component parts being taken
onsite for servicing the machinery. Such mistakes not only

costs a loss in terms of travel time back
to the service centre to collect the correct part, but the mining

companies have very tight maintenance
schedules. Machinery has to be available and delays are not

tolerated.

Each fortnight, Allan contacts the workshop
foremen and checks the hours worked by staff at the

service centre. He then prepares the
payroll and writes cheques for each employee.

Each day, the office assistant banks the
day’s takings and gives the bank receipt to Allan when he

makes his daily call. Usually this will be
the following day from the bank deposit. Allan then does a

reconciliation of money banked with the
previous day’s takings.

Apart from the issues identified above,
Allan wants to achieve the following:

– Ensuring repeat business from mining
companies.

– Improve control over stock ordering. A
new system is required to manage this aspect of the

business. The ability to order stock for
the three businesses instead of individual ordering

would ensure economies not being realised
at the moment.

– Ability to quickly determine if a
required component part is in stock.

– Ability to generate an invoice off data
held within the system.

– Improved payroll process to reduce the
need to contact staff for details. Allan would prefer a

system that recorded the working hours
daily and also supported staff being paid directly

through his bank system.

– Tracking customers for repeat business.
Allan wants a system that will track customers and

contact them at specified times with
special offers.

– Price Book issues. A system to have
timely production of price variations to arrive at all

service centres on the same day.

– Technology to support these changes.

After an initial investigation, Allan has
asked your group to develop a feasibility report on providing a

suitable solution for the accounting and
payroll problems. At a minimum level, your feasibility report

should contain the following generic
sections:

Your Task:

You are required to submit a feasibility
report.

At a minimum level, your feasibility report
should contain the following generic sections:

Executive Summary

Description of the problem

Solution objectives

Constraints

Development plans

Potential solutions

Recommendations

Your appendix should also contain

Any
brochures (scans), websites, photographs and prices you have researched to
complete your

assignment.

Feasibility Report Marking Guidelines

Executive Summary …/2

Description of the problem …/3

Solution objectives …/3

Constraints …/1

Development plans …/3

Potential solutions …/2

Recommendations …/2

Presentation, clarity of discussion …/2

Logic and evidence of research …/2

Total Mark …/20