Task

Q1 Flowchart

Emporium Trading Company purchases products from Asia and then resells them to local retailers. During the last 2 years demand for the imported products has increased significantly. Emporium Trading is expanding its local operations, including a new information system, to assist with managing the increase in purchases. You work as a consultant systems analyst, and you have been tasked with preparing documentation to assist with the identification of the current business processes in order to facilitate the identification of a suitable system for the acquisition and payment for products.

Based on the interview below with the department supervisor, prepare a document flowchart using a system tool, to document the acquisition to payment system that currently exists at Emporium Trading Company.

A purchase requisition is sent from the inventory system to the purchasing department clerk. The clerk prepares the PO using the vendor and inventory files and emails the PO to the vendor. The vendor returns a vendor acknowledgement to the clerk indicating receipt of the PO. The purchasing clerk then sends a PO notification to the Accounts Payable clerk.

When the receiving department accepts the vendor goods, the inventory system automatically send the AP clerk a receiving report. The AP clerk also receives invoices from vendors. The vendor invoices are matched to the PO notification and the goods receipt by the AP clerk, who then updates the accounts payable master file. Payment request is then sent by the AP clerk to the accounting department. All files at Emporium Trading are filed in date order.

The accounting department then prepares the EFT file for vendor payment. Once the payment has been approved, the system automatically updates the AP master file and the general ledger, and forwards the payment details to the bank.

A system tool includes software such as Word, Excel, Smartdraw or Edraw. There are many tools that are available to trial for free on the internet.

Q2 Business Intelligence Research Report

Using appropriate authoritative sources, create a 1200 word research report that:
- explains the role of data analysis tools and data mining in contemporary organisations
- identifies and explains the ethical implications around gathering, storing and using customer information

In Resources is an article by Dean, Payne and Landry (2016) which may be a good starting point for your research.

Your research should include such sources as the professional body articles as well as text books and peer reviewed academic journals. Vendor websites are not considered to be appropriate sources of information for this task. Use APA referencing in your report.

Rationale

Q1 This assessment task has been designed to develop your ability interpret and evaluate the concepts covered in Topic 2. More specifically it seeks to assess your progress towards the learning outcome :

- be able to evaluate accounting information system architecture and generate models of business events.

Q2 This assessment task has been designed to develop your ability to interpret and evaluate the concepts covered in Topic 3. More specifically it seeks to assess your ability to:

- be able to explain the role of data analysis tools and data mining