More On Using Commercial Accounting Software To Illustrate Accounting Information Systems Topics

Abstract

Our earlier paper on this topic (Pillsbury and Saemann, 1996) presented materials which adapted the widely-used Systems Understanding Aid (Arens and Ward, 1995) a manual practice case for use with Great Plains’ Dynamics.  Dynamics is a high-end windows-based accounting general ledger package available free to universities for student use.  The original materials were very transaction oriented in nature – focusing on the recording of revenue, expenditure, and payroll transactions and preparation of basic financial statements.  In this paper we provide materials which move beyond the basic Systems Understand Aid transaction set and focus on issues related to control features, establishment of security, use of classes in file maintenance, reporting and query capabilities, and the incorporation of macros to facilitate workload.