Accounting Information System Paper

Riodran Manufacturing, Incorporated manufactures plastics and has several different locations throughout the United States they have a branch located in Michigan which specializes in custom plastic parts, Georgia manufactures plastic beverage containers and California which is the head of research and development, as well as a joint venture location in China which manufactures plastic fan parts. Each location has acquired their own financial and accounting system and all data input into their own systems is sent to the corporate headquarters in San Jose, California. They provide the information to corporate to be combined into corporates information systems. This information is provided to the San Jose location either by hardcopy reports that must be re-entered or data files that must be converted to become compatible with San Jose’s information systems.

Each location employed different vendors to process their financial and accounting information, and handles accounts payable, accounts receivable, order entry, sales and purchases, payroll, financial reporting amount many other financial components. When each location purchased vendors to develop their information system the issue of compatibility of these systems was not addressed causing many issues when transmitting data to the corporate office in San Jose. This has caused additional labor cost to convert data into a format that could be uploaded into San Jose’s information system or causing the information to be re-entered manually by employees at headquarters from hardcopy reports. The San Jose location uses a Windows based enterprise resource planning software that handles manufacturing, distribution and financial management that has been specifically designed for plastic manufacturing. This allows the corporate location to utilize one system to process profit and loss reports, financial, accounting, payroll among many others within the one system. However, the systems uses by the other locations are