Are you familiar with accounting software? You may have used such software at work, but many of you are likely to be studying accounting before starting full-time work. Nevertheless, most higher educational establishments have some sort of accounting software for use by students. While it is often older versions of popular commercial packages such as Sage or Pegasus, it is still useful to try setting up accounts, entering a few transactions and extracting the results. Only in this way will you properly grasp many of the issues raised in this chapter, especially in relation to control.

When you use the package, try entering deliberate mistakes, and see which the software will pick up, and which it will not. Think about how your wider accounting system could prevent or detect the latter errors. Would a bank reconciliation help, for example? Wider still, what would you do now if the disk or other storage device on which you have just saved your transactions were to be lost or corrupted?

Even if you cannot get access to such a package, try to get hold of one of the newer generation of accounting packages, such as Quicken or Money, which are aimed at use in the small business, or for domestic accounting. Restricted or evalua- tion editions of such packages are occasionally available online, or given away with computing magazines. At the very least, browse such magazines looking for reviews of accounting packages.

Your overall aim is to get a feel for what accounting software can do, and how it typ- ically does it. It is only through getting as close to the use of accounting software as your circumstances permit that you will be able to relate the practicalities of account- ing to the inevitably rather general points that have been covered in this chapter.