Radisson hotels and resorts Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Radisson hotels and resorts - Essay Example Accounting plays a very crucial and essential role in every trade, business and institution. A lot of people is under the assumption that accounting is similar to book-keeping, but in actual sense, book-keeping is just a subset of accounting. So, what is accountingAccounting is a system that provides quantitative information about finances. ("The Free Dictionary" by Farlex). Accounting covers a wide range of tasks from updating and maintaining of accounting records; recording of business transactions; accounts balancing and reconciliation; accounts reporting amongst others. An accounting system is in short, an information system that facilitates the process of accounting: bookkeeping (recording), classification, reporting and interpretation of business transactions.In the conventional form of accounting (manual accounting), multiple books are being kept for different tasks/different accounts and this resulted in data duplication. As with data duplication: increased data means increas ed possibilities of errors; updates to data has to be ensured that all the matching records are updated- otherwise it will result in data being out of synchronisation. Manual accounting is a very labour intensive and time consuming process.However, the modern day technology has brought about various accounting systems that optimise the accounting process, resulting in greater efficiency and increased effectiveness. The automated accounting systems also promote a higher level of accuracy and tighter security. This paper is written based on the implementation of SAGE ACCPAC accounting system by the Radisson Hotels and Resorts. Brief Overview: Radisson Hotels and Resorts (Carlson Hospitality Worldwide) Radisson Hotels and Resorts operates, manages and franchises over 430 hotels and resorts, in 59 countries. It is part of Carlson Hospitality Worldwide whose parent is Carlson Companies, Inc., one of the largest privately owned corporations in the United States. As their hotels and resorts were using a wide variety of accounting systems, it resulted in reduced efficiency and higher operational cost. It was also more time consuming and staff intensive to consolidate the financial data from the different systems. These prompted Radisson to sought for a better solution to integrate their financial systems. (ACCPAC International Inc, 2002) SAGE ACCPAC ERP (formerly known as ACCPAC Advantage Series ) Sage ACCPAC ERP is a sophisticated, robust accounting and operations system. Radisson opted to implement the Sage ACCPAC with ACCPAC online. The ACCPAC Online provides the same power and flexibility as SAGE ACCPAC, and has an additional benefit: complete accessibility to the accounting system through a standard web browser. Because Sage ACCPAC ERP is very robust, its capability can be extended to be more than just an accounting system. Sage ACCPAC has built their software solution in a modular design, which means, customers can 'mix and match' the modules to fit to their needs. Radisson's customised solution is a combination of the following Sage ACCPAC modules: General Ledger Accounts Payable Accounts Receivable Inventory Control Module Purchase Orders Module Payroll Module General Ledger Module The General Ledger module is the main module (foundation) of any accounting system, and therefore, understanding the capability of this module is the most important. This ACCPAC General Ledger module fully integrates with the other ACCPAC advantage Series modules. It offers a flexible account structure, and budgeting capabilities. It is also used to generate financial reports, and provides the ability to drill down to originating transaction in other modules such as Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable. Accounts Payable Module The Accounts Payable module provides a set of accounting and reporting features to manage the detailed information such as vendor record, transaction processing, flexible cash disbursement and full check reconciliation. The database is designed in a way where user can access