Organizational Information System
Different departments from different companies may have one common aim, which is making more profits and can be established in the competitive market. As a consequence, we need to identify, investigate and evaluate systems related key concepts to achieve this great goal. This essay refers to three sessions; they are system thinking, key mobile computing devices, and information system methodologies respectively. And these three key concepts have a significant impact on nearly every working area.
We can easily find the ubiquity of the systems and sub-systems, such as business system, astronomical system, and climatic system. Actually these different kinds of systems can be grouped into three generic types; they are natural systems, human-made systems, and social systems respectively.
Then I will take the accounting system of a manufacturing company as an example. The accounting system can be defined as “the process of identifying, measuring and communicating economic information to permit informed judgments and decisions by the users of the information.” (Hussain, 2009 P.263)
The accounting system can be divided into two sub-systems; one is financial accounting which provides the information through the balance sheet, income statement, and statement of cash flows for individuals or other organizations that are external to the business, the other is management accounting which provides the information through cost control or monthly budgets for internal management consumption of a business organization. (See figure1)
There are three main levels of a typical hierarchical business organization. The lowest level is the transaction processing systems (TPS), “the least intensive decision-making activity occurs at this level, besides the operational systems are concerned with the recording of day to day transactions that occur internally and externally within the business environment. (Hussain, 2009 P.71) For example, the financial report like balance sheet, the input of the balance sheet are the data like trade receivables, payables, cash at bank, stock, property, plant, motor vans, and software, the process is making use of the software to make a balance sheet, and the output is showing the external information like assets and liabilities to the medium level, whilst the management report like the budget, the input of the budget are the data of cash outlay on equipment, monthly planned purchases of stock for re-sale, monthly planned sales monthly cash outlay on salaries, general expenses, depreciation and software. Then the process is using the software to make a budget, and the output is showing the internal information and promoting the possible identifications of short-term problems.
The medium level of the systems characteristics is management information systems (MIS), “management information systems are concerned with the provision of relevant, timely and useful information for