Week 2 And 3 - Transaction Processing And Documentation Flashcards
What is data processing?
Data processing is the collection and manipulation of items of data to produce meaningful information.
What are the three stages in the data processing cycle?
- Data input
- Data storage or Data processing
- Information output
In relation to data input, what volume of a businesses activities have to be inputted into the system?
We need to capture data every time a business does something.
What 3 types of data are captured in the data input stage?
- Activity of interest (E.g. Sale).
- Resources affected (Inventory, cash).
- People who participated in the activity (customer/employee)
What are the four main reasons for fat finger errors to occur?
- Speed of data entry
- Sticky keyboards
- A misunderstanding of units
- Confusion between net and gross amounts
What are the three forms of source documentation?
Paper source documentation - receipts, invoices etc
Turnaround documentation - a document given out, completed and retuned.
Source data automation - data is collected by computers. Barcodes etc
What is the organisational structure of data (finance related) within a firm?
General ledger
Subsidiary ledgers
Transaction journals
What is the general term which describes the way in which a firms organised data is stored?
Coding schema or the Chart of Accounts
What is meant by the term ‘General Ledger Coding Structure’?
The General Ledger Coding Structure is the set of nested accounts in which a business records its transactions
In order for a General Ledger Coding Structure to be useful, what 4 things must it be…
Logical
Intuitive
Valuable
Expandable
Why is it important to get the general ledger coding structure right from the start?
It usually cannot be amended without significant upheaval
And
It establishes the relationship between accounting elements
And
It sets limits on the granularity of analysis and reports
And
It determines authority for management (in charge of all accounts beginning with 2/3/4 for example)
What are the 4 basic functions of data processing?
Create new records
Read existing records
Update previous records
Delete data
What does the term ‘real-time’ mean in relation to data processing?
Data accumulated through business activities is processes as and when it occurs.
When data has been stored, it can be viewed either as…
A soft or hard copy
What does ‘ERP’ stand for? And what does this mean?
Enterprise Resource Planning system.
The enterprise resource planning system integrates all data collected from all business cycles.
How many businesses cycles are there and what are they?
4
Revenue cycle
Expenditure cycle
Conversion cycle
Management cycle
Give one example of an ERP systems software package
SAGE
Give 4 advantages of a good ERP system
- Data is only captured once
- Enterprise-wide single view of an organisations data.
- Greater visibility and monitoring capabilities for management.
- Higher level of data security.
- Time saved through automation.
- Standardisation of procedures and reports.
- Improves level of customer service
Give 4 disadvantages of an ERP system
- Complexity
- User resistance
- Time to implement is significant
- Expensive to implement
What is the storage pattern for a database from broad to specific?
File
Record
Field
What is the main advantage of using a database?
The data and applications to use the data are independent of each other.
users of databases have what view?
Logical view
Designers of databases have what view?
Physical view
What legislation is in place in the UK that ensures that companies document their activity?
Companies act 2006
What is meant by the term ‘Big Data’?
Big data is a term used to describe the phenomenon of creating, curating and exploiting extremely large sets of data to reveal patterns and behaviour.
What industry is the use of big data specifically useful?
The retail industry
Give 3 examples of where big data comes from
Mobile phones Internet interactions Social media GPS devices Smart speakers
What are 3 practical issues with big data?
Storage
Processing capacity
Timeliness of analysis
What are the 7 characteristics of big data and what do they each mean?
- Velocity: speed of data generation.
- Volume: the amount of data collected per second
- Variety: what form does the data come in?Structured and unstructured
- Value: How is big data monetised?
- Veracity: Does big data collection reduce reliability?
- Variability: Is big data a pattern or one off?
- Visualisation: summarise big data into compressible ‘big pictures’
