Lecture Notes on Analysis & Design of Accounting Information Systems

Jagdish S. Gangolly
Department of Accounting & Law
State University of New York at Albany

PREFACE

The main object of teaching is not to give explanations, but to knock at the doors of the mind. If any boy is asked to give an account of what is awakened in him by such knocking, he will probably say something silly. For what happens within is much bigger than what comes out in words. Those who pin their faith on university examinations as the test of education take no account of this.

These notes are prepared exclusively for the benefit of the students in the course Acc 681 Accounting Information Systems in the Department of Accounting & Law at the State University of New York at Albany, and are not to be used by others for any purpose without the express permission of the author.

I shall be adding to these notes as we go along. You can download the file and print the pages that you need. You will find the instructions for viewing postscript files on the course homepage at

http://www.albany.edu/faculty/gangolly/acc682/fall99/

Jagdish S. Gangolly

Albany, NY 12222

• Contents
• Introduction to Systems I
  • Introduction
  • What is an accounting information system?
    • What is a system?
    • What is an information system?
    • What is an accounting information system?
  • Different views of a system
    • A Contextual view
    • A Control view
  • Attributes of Complex Systems: (Booch, 1994)
    • Some basic concepts & strategies in the study of systems
  • References
• Introduction to Systems II
  • Introduction
  • Types of Information Systems
    • Classification by mode of processing
    • Classification by System Objectives
    • Classification based on the nature of interaction with environment
  • Specification of Information Systems
    • Why specifications?
    • Formal vs. Informal Specifications
    • Components of specifications
  • Methodologies for Systems Development
    • Systems Development Life Cycle
  • References
• The Functional Model
  • Introduction
  • The Strategy in Functional Modeling
  • Dataflow Diagrams
  • Guidelines for Drawing Dataflow Diagrams
  • A Toy Sales Order Entry & Processing System (Example):
  • References
• About this document ...