Fianace and Accounting

Information is data with meaning. In a business, this process comes alive on a daily basis in both the Accounting and Finance departments. These departments take data and create information with them through their income and balance sheets. The task of filtering through and deciphering the bulk of data generated from a company as large as Riordan is a daunting task. Only with information systems, will this task become less cumbersome and facilitate business growth.

Currently Riordan has facilities in several locations: Georgia, Michigan, California, and China. All locations have different Finance and Accounting software that are incompatible. Each site generates information that is only relevant to the site of origin, thus causing a separation of the entire organization. This creates a need to merge the information so it can become useable for executives and upper management. Merging the information becomes costly and it takes weeks to reconcile the income and balance sheets. These reasons are why a system must be implemented which will unify the information generated at each site.

Based on Riordan's needs, an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system would best fit Riordan's operations. "The major objectives of ERP systems are too tightly integrating the functional areas of the organization, enabling information to flow seamlessly across them. This means that changes in one functional area immediately reflects in all other pertinent areas. In essence, ERP systems provide the information necessary to control the business processes of the organization". With this in mind, SAP would be the most appropriate ERP software to implement within the Finance and Accounting departments. It provides the Finance and Accounting department with the tools they need to reduce the cost incurred every month in additional labor needed to reconcile their income and balance sheets and perform audits.

A key benefit of an ERP System is increased flexibility and agility. It can be used to merge the data created from every department resulting in the business being able to react faster to changes and identify new business opportunities. Another benefit, it will enhance upper management's ability to make decision. Riordan's management will be able to make better decisions in a shorter time with the access of this information. Lastly, the organization will have better quality and efficiency. It will improve business processes, which will have a positive impact on production, distribution, and customer service.

Implementing the system will not be difficult. Servers can be installed at the organization's headquarter. Several dedicated servers in a cluster installed in the data center, which will provide fault tolerance. If a single server fails the others will pick up the workload until that server can be safely be brought back online and rejoin the cluster of servers. In addition,