Helpers and Links for ACCT 5342

ACCT 5342 Accounting Information Systems
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

In 1667, William Petty, in a letter to his cousin Robert Southwell on "The Scale of Creatures," wrote that "between God and man, there are holy Angells, Created Intelligences, and subtile materiall beings; as there are between man and the lowest animall a multitude of intermediate natures." Whether he saw economic systems as among these created intelligences is left unsaid. By the time of Alfred Smee, the forest was obscured by the trees. Proposing, in 1851, that mechanical processing of ideas would require a relational and differential machine the size of the City of London, Smee failed to notice from his quarters on Threadneedle Street that the Bank of England's network of linked transactions, mediated by a hive of accountants, already constitued such a machine. "The average daily transactions in the London Bankers' Clearing House amount to about twenty millions of pounds sterling, which if paid in gold coin would weigh about 157 tons," reported Stanley Jevons in 1896.

G.B. Dyson, Darwin Among the Machines: The Evolution of Global Intelligence (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1997, p. 171)

Table of Contents

What is AIS?

Training Videotapes

Arizona State University Tutorials for MS Access and Excel (Go to Computer Labs Link)

Datasheet and/or Form Helper Tables

URLs of Direct Interest for Project 2

Web Links for Access and Databases

Data Mining 

Other Helper Web Sites

Microsoft and the AICPA

FAQs

Professional Web Sites of Possible Interest

Fraud Prevention, Detection, and Auditing

SQL Ledger --- http://www.sql-ledger.org/

What is AIS?

February 17, 2005 message from Jagdish Gangolly [JGangolly@UAMAIL.ALBANY.EDU] 

I am giving below a few paragraphs from the lecture notes for my first class in the first (of the six) course in accounting information systems in our AIS program at Albany. In fact this lecture sets forth for the students the tone for the entire AIS program stretching over two semesters.

I hope this helps clarifies some of the issues raised recently on this list. We in AIS have a solemn obligation to learn from our colleagues from Systems Engineering as well as Computer Science. What ultimately matters is what AIS is, not where it is housed. Also, what matters is HOW we incorporate the results of work in those allied areas into our own thinking, not WHERE we tuck those ideas. Unless we make serious efforts to incorporate the results of the work in those allied areas into AIS, we will lag behind the times.

I would be very interested in getting the comments from the readers on the notes below.

Respectfully submitted,

Jagdish

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A System:

A system can be defined as a set of inter-dependent components (some of which may be systems in their own right) which collectively accomplish certain objectives. The three important concepts in the above definition are Component, Interdependency, and objectives. The components can themselves be systems. For example, an automobile consists of subsystems such as engine, electrical system, suspension, transmission subsystem, and so on. If you look at the engine as a system of its own right, it consists, in turn, of subsystems such as engine block, pistons, and so on. The automobile as a system accomplishes certain objective, viz., transportation. Similarly, a vending machine has a number of components which, collectively accomplish the objective, viz., dispensing products only when the correct amount of money has been deposited.

The various components must be interdependent, and work together in order to accomplish the objectives of the system. For example, in an automobile, each component has a function to perform so that the automobile can achieve its purpose, else it would be redundant. For a component to contribute towards the accomplishment of the system objective, it must work co-operatively with the other components.

Any system engineered by humans have at least one objective. Such systems are designed specifically to accomplish such objectives. The objectives are either given to the system designers, or must be obtained by the designer by surveying the people who will use the system. The objectives include the performance requirements of the system and the resource constraints that will underly the design. For example, in the case of an automobile, the requirements may be expressed in terms of fuel consumption (in terms of fuel economy and fuel tank capacity), speed requirements (in terms of maximum speed as well as acceleration), ęsthetic requirements in terms of style, space requirements (number of passengers, etc.), and so on. The resource constraints may include the maximum amount the customer is willing to pay, the prices of raw materials and components/sub-assemblies.

Most human engineered systems operate by interacting with the environment in which it exists. For example, an automobile operates in an environment with a driver, and the roadways that it shares with other vehicles. It reacts to inputs from the various external entities in the environment. We can define the contextual view of a system as describing graphically the interaction of the system with the various entities in its environment. The interactions consist of dataflows from and to such a system.The contextual view clarifies the boundary of the system and its interfaces with environment in which it operates.

 

Information System:

An information system differs from other kinds of systems in that its objective is to monitor/document/control the operations of some other system, which we can call a target system. An information system has no existence independent of such a target system. For example, production activities would be the target system for a manufacturing information system, human resources in the business operations would be the target system of a human resource information system, and so on. Continuing with the vending machine example, there is within it a component/sub-system (consisting of a chip/circuitry) that can be viewed as an information system. In some sense, every engineered physical system will have a subsystem that can be considered an information system whose objective is to monitor and control such a physical system.

Since the objective of an information system is to monitor and control the target system, the target and the information system will have interfaces with each other. For example, in case of a physical system such as an automobile, the interfaces will include sensors that continuously gather data on speed, fuel tank level, driver's actions (such as gas pedal depressed?, brakes on/off? light switch position changed? and so on). When the sensors detect any changes, the information system takes action by directly sending action signals to the target system (for example when the driver depresses the brake pedal) or updates the state of the information system (for example the updates of odometer, speedometer, and trip odometer). In an important sense, the information system in an automobile serves as a tool to control the behavior of the automobile by providing the driver crucial information (speed of the car, the fuel level in the tank, headlights on?, time for service? and so on).

 

Accounting Information System:

Being an information system, an accounting information system must have a target system. It should be obvious that the target system for an accounting information systems consists of certain aspects of the business operations in an enterprise. Other (non-accounting) aspects of business operations are covered by various other information systems such as Human Resources Information System, Production Planning/Scheduling System, Strategic Planning System, and so on. The target system for an accounting information system therefore has to do with the aspects of business operations that have to do with accountability for the assets/liabilities of the enterprise, the determination of the results of operations that ultimately leads to the computation of comprehensive income, and the financial reporting aspects of business operations.

The objective of an accounting information system is to monitor and control the target system (aspects of business operations) in the same way that the objective of the information system in an automobile is to monitor and control the automobile. Just as the information system in the automobile senses the data in the automobile (and the driver) in order to either directly or through the actions of the driver control the behavior of the automobile, an accounting information system must help aid the people manning the business operations take actions to meet the operational business objectives.

Bob Jensen created a timeline of major happenings (on a timeline) leading up to the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) and On LIne Analytical Process (OLAP) systems.  Overviews of XML, VoiceXML, XLink, XHTML, XBRL, XForm, XSLT, RDF and the Semantic Web are also provided --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/xmlrdf.htm

Information Systems Audit and Control Association and Foundation Web (ISACA) site --- http://www.isaca.org/ 

Tom Hicks has some really helpful tutorials for authoring and networking
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~thicks/   (Go to tutorials)  Thanks for sharing Tom

From Julie Smith David at Arizona State University --- http://www.cob.asu.edu/fac/jsmithdavid/ 

Web Graphics and Animation Overview 
Looking to create your first Web graphic? Jason reveals all, from manipulating existing images to building from scratch, choosing a format to Web optimization, rollovers to animations --- http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/01/28/index1a.html 

Information Systems Audit and Control Association and Foundation Web (ISACA) site --- http://www.isaca.org/ 

ISWORLD at http://www.isworld.org/isworld/isworldtext.html 

[What's New] [Top Resources] [Research] [Teaching] [Professional Activities][Country Pages] [ISWorld List Digest] [About ISWorld]

We will provide information management scholars and practitioners with a single entry point to resources related to information systems technology and promote the development of an international information infrastructure that will dramatically improve the world's ability to use information systems for creating, disseminating, and applying knowledge. Our vision has been sharpened by several metaphors which are accessible. Below are our objectives and a overview of our target community.

Great AIS links are also provided by Alan Sangster at http://www.qub.ac.uk/mgt/alans/alans.htm 

Jensen's Index

Glossaries

FAQs

ACCT5342

Table of Contents






Training Videotapes

http://icslearn.com/learning/cpecourse.htm

Jensen's Index

Glossaries

FAQs

ACCT5342

Table of Contents

Datasheet and/or Form Helper Tables

Jensen's Index

Glossaries

FAQs

ACCT5342

Table of Contents


Some validation rules that use the LIKE comparison operator

Validation Rule

Tests For

#1/1/1997# 
Without quotes, the # indicated a date record
LIKE "##### or
LIKE "#####-####"
 A U.S. zip code
LIKE "[A-Z]#[A-Z]#[A-Z]#"
 A Canadian postal code
LIKE "Smith*"
 A string beginning with "Smith"
LIKE "*smith##*"
 A string with "smith" followed by two numbers anywhere in the string
LIKE "??00####"
 An eight-character string that has any first two characters followed by exactly two zeros and then any four numbers
LIKE "[!0-9BMQ]*####"
 A string that has any character other than a number or the letter B, M, or Q in the first position and ends with exactly four numbers



Jensen's Index

Glossaries

FAQs

ACCT5342

Table of Contents


Input mask definition characters used to create an input mask

Mask Character
 Meaning


0
 A number must be entered in this position. Plus (+) and minus (-) signs are not allowed.
9
 A number or a space can be entered in this position. Plus and minus signs are not allowed. If the user skips this position by moving the cursor past the position without entering anything, Microsoft Access stores nothing.
#
 A number, space, or plus or minus sign can be entered in this position. If the user skips this position by moving the cursor past the position without entering anything, Access stores a space.
L
 A letter must be entered in this position.
?
 A letter can be entered in this position. If the user skips this position by moving the cursor past the position without entering anything, Access stores nothing.
A
 A letter or number must be entered in this position.
a
 A letter or number can be entered in this position. If the user skips this position by moving the cursor past the position without entering anything, Access stores nothing.
&
 A character or a space must be entered in this position.
C
 Any character or a space can be entered in this position. If the user skips this position by moving the cursor past the position without entering anything, Access stores nothing.
.
 Decimal placeholder (depends on the settings in the International section of Windows Control Panel).
,
 Thousand separator (depends on the settings in the International section of Windows Control Panel).
: ; - /
 Date and time separators (depends on the settings in the International section of Windows Control Panel).
<
 Converts all characters that follow to lowercase.
>
 Converts all characters that follow to uppercase.
!
 Causes the mask to fill from right to left when you define optional characters on the left end of the mask. You can place this character anywhere in the mask.
\
 Causes the character immediately following to be displayed as a literal character rather than as a mask character.
"literal"
 You can also enclose any literal string in double quotation marks rather than using the \ character repeatedly.



Jensen's Index

Glossaries

FAQs

ACCT5342

Table of Contents


The keyboard shortcuts for moving in fields and records

Key(s)
 Movement in Fields and Records


Tab
 Moves to the next field.
Shift-Tab
 Moves to the previous field.
Home
 Moves to the first field of the current record.
End
 Moves to the last field of the current record.
Up arrow
 Moves to the current field of the previous record.
Down arrow
 Moves to the current field of the next record.
Ctrl-Up arrow
 Moves to the current field of the first record.
Ctrl-Down arrow
 Moves to the current field of the last record.
Ctrl-Home
 Moves to the first field of the first record.
Ctrl-End
 Moves to the last field of the last record.
Ctrl-Tab
 If on a subform, moves to the next field on the main form. If the subform is the last field in tab sequence on the main form, moves to the first field in the next main record. If not on a subform, moves to the next field.
Ctrl-Shift-Tab
 If on a subform, moves to the previous field on the main form. If the subform is the first field in tab sequence on the main form, moves to the last field in the previous main record. If not on a subform, moves to the previous field.
Ctrl-Shift-Home
 Moves to the first field on the main form.
F5
 Moves to the record number box.


Jensen's Index

Glossaries

FAQs

ACCT5342

Table of Contents



The keyboard shortcuts for actions in a list box or a combo box

Key(s)
 Action in a List Box or a Combo Box


F4 or Alt-Down arrow
 Opens a combo box or a drop-down list box.
Down arrow
 Moves down one line.
Up arrow
 Moves up one line.
PgDn
 Moves down to next group of lines.
PgUp
 Moves up to next group of lines.
Tab
 Exits the box.



Operators Used in Expressions
Operator Description Example Limits Records to
Arithmetic Operators      
+ Addition =Cost+50 Values equal to 50 more than the value in the Cost field
- Subtraction =Cost-50 Values equal to 50 less than the value in the Cost field
* Multiplication =Cost*2 Values twice the amount in the Cost field
/ Division =Cost/2 Values half the amount in the Cost field
\ Integer division =Cost\2 The integer portion of values that results from dividing the cost field value by 2
Mod Modulo division =Cost Mod 2 The remainder of dividing the Cost value by 2
Comparison Operators      
= Equals =Books or ="Books" Text value Books
> Greater than >7/15/01 or >#7/15/01# Dates later than July 15, 2001
< Less than <1500 Values less than 1500
>= Greater than or equal to >=15 Values greater than or equal to 15
<= Less than or equal to <=1/1/02 or <=#1/1/02# Dates on or before January 1, 2002
<> Not equal to <>NY or <>"NY" Values other than NY
Between...And Between two values, inclusive Between 100 And 500 Numbers from 100 to 500, inclusive
In Included in a set of values In("Germany", "France") Either Germany or France
Is Null Field is empty Is Null Records with no value in the field
Is Not Null Field is not empty Is Not Null Records with a value in the field
"" Field contains zero-length string ="" Records with zero-length string in the field
Like With wildcards, matches a pattern Lice C* or Like "C*" Any text values that begin with C
Logical Operators      
And Both conditions are True >=10 And <=100 Values between 10 and 100, inclusive
Or Either condition is True Books Or Videos or "Books" Or "Videos" Either Books or Videos
Not
! or .		 Not True Not Like AB* or Not Like "AB*" All values except those beginning with AB
MS Access uses an exclamation point or a period to separate names in an expression. For example, the Order Details table has a column for order quantity. Note the expression; [Order Details]! [Quantity]

 

 


Using Date Functions in Expressions
Function Expression Result
Date() <Date()+45 Displays work orders with Completion Date less than 45 days from today.
DateAdd() >DateAdd("m",6,Date()) Displays work orders with Completion Date more than six months from today. The m isolates the month value.
Year() Year([Completion Date])=2001 Displays work orders whose Completion Date falls in 2001.
DatePart() DatePart("q",[Completion Date])=2 Displays work orders whose Completion Date is in the second calendar quarter. The q isolates the calendar quarter.
Month() Year([Completion Date])=Year(Now) And Month([Completion Date])=Month(Now) Displays work orders with Completion Dates in the current year and month.
Between [Beginning Date] And [Ending Date]
Between #1/1/1997# And #12/31/1997#
(cur( ) formats expression as currency.

 Between [Beginning Date] and [Ending Date] will let the user specify beginning and ending dates.

Between #1/1/1997# And #12/31/1997# will fix the beginning and ending dates, thereby, not allowing user discretion.

Ccur() formats the expression as currency.

 

Jensen's Index

Glossaries

FAQs

ACCT5342

Table of Contents

FAQs

Hi Kate,

I did not have an answer to your problem, so I asked some friends. John Garlick replied as shown below. His email address is John Garlick [jgarlick@AIKENELECTRIC.NET]

Bob Jensen

-----Original Message----- 
From: John Garlick [mailto:jgarlick@AIKENELECTRIC.NET]  
Sent: Sunday, January 06, 2002 11:07 AM 
To: AECM@LISTSERV.LOYOLA.EDU 
Subject: Re: In Search of An Answer to a MS Access Question

I have experienced the same problem. What I found out is that someone has created a sub-database (linked to the table) and has their database open using some of my information. If you delete the data in your database, it will impact their database adversely so the message is displayed. Also, this could be because the relationships from one table to another (referential intergity is being used) and the records can not or should not be deleted as the related field in the table is the one in the one to many or one to one field in the referential intergity relationship. Try both of these and if it does not fix the problem, then it is beyond my knowledge!

-----Original Message----- 
From: Katherine.J.Lopez@andersen.com 
Sent: Sunday, January 05, 2002 10:17 AM 
To: rjensen@trinity.edu
Subject: Re: In Search of An Answer to a MS Access Question

Hi Dr. Jensen,

I have an Access question I was hoping you could help me with.

Background: My firm has recently converted its Access database from Office 97 to Office 2000. We have a shared database with no locked files. The following problem never occurred prior to conversion.

Problem: When I delete a large number of records in a table (ex. 500 records) I receive the following error message, “Could not update; currently locked.” When I click okay the following message appears, “Do you want to suppress further error messages telling you why records can’t be deleted? If you click no, a message will appear for every record that can’t be deleted.” I click ‘yes’, then the screen then goes white as the computer processes the request and when it is finished most the records are deleted. However, one record shows up as not being deleted followed by a multitude of blank line (normally over 100), but the blank lines are actually filled with data. (You can see the data if you select the lines, hit delete and cancel out.)

The same process can delete the records I was not able to delete; only I have to use smaller batches. (I have no problem deleting 30 rows at a time.)

I think the problem revolves around the shared access, if I copy the file from the network to my desktop I am able to delete 800+ records at a time. Do you know if Access 2000 treats how the database is shared differently than Access 97? Or, do you know of another reason this may be happening?

Thanks for your help, 
Kate Lopez


Web Links of Possible Interest

ACCT 5312 Project Web Sites

MS Access Web Sites of Possible Interest

Jensen's Index

Glossaries

FAQs

ACCT5342

Table of Contents



Other Helper Web Sites

General Search Engines

Search engine for education sites --- http://www.searchedu.com/   
My gosh, there were 421 hits for "Bob Jensen," 52 hits for "FAS 133," and 109 hits for "SFAS 133!  I am truly impressed.

Over 20 million university and education pages indexed and ranked in order of popularity.

Search for electronic books --- http://www.searchebooks.com/ 
There were 293 hits for accounting books.

For more help in online searching go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 

Jensen's Index

Glossaries

FAQs

ACCT5342

Table of Contents

Business, Accounting, Finance & InvestmentsSearch Engines

 

Jensen's Index

Glossaries

FAQs

ACCT5342

Table of Contents

Other URLs of Possible Interest

 

Jensen's Index

Glossaries

FAQs

ACCT5342

Table of Contents

Microsoft and the AICPA

Date: Fri, 06 Jun 1997 11:40:45 -0500 (EST)
From: RICE@LOYOLA.EDU
Subject: Microsoft and the Accounting Profession

Many of you probably remember hearing about the agreement made between Microsoft
and the AICPA which was announced in October 1996 at the AICPA meeting in
Chicago when Bill Gates spoke to the group via video conference. For more
information on how Microsoft is partnering with our profession, you can check
out the following URL: http://www.microsoft.com/smallbiz/cpa/default.htm which
is called "Focus on Accountants". You may also want to check out Microsoft's
Accounting Home Page at http://www.microsoft.com/industry/acc/. And don't forget
their Higher Education page at http://www.microsoft.com/education/hed/.

The Focus on Accountants page includes the following links including one to the
Partners' Conference which was sponsored by Microsoft earlier this week in
Phoenix:

In Focus: Keeping an Eye on the Future Consulting for Small
Business: The Next Field of Growth for CPAs

In the News Get up to date news from the leading news and resource
provider for accountants on the Internet, Faulkner & Gray's
Electronic Accountant.

Perspectives on Practice Check out our library of valuable
editorials on a wide range of topics, including:

The Partner's Conference in Journal of Accountancy Read a news
report on The Partner's Conference from the April 1997 issue of
Journal of Accountancy.

The Partners' Conference The accounting industry is at a turning
point. Microsoft and the American Institute of CPAs are hosting
The Partners' Conference, an important meeting designed to educate
CPAs about the opportunities present in the changing accounting
industry. Full conference details.

How sole proprietors can stay competitive without working so hard
Protecting financial data on the Internet What's next for client
write-up?

Consulting, the Driving Force for Growth Read an interview with
Matt Davis, Microsoft's Worldwide Accounting Marketing Manager,
where he answers questions about the changing accounting industry,
the World Wide Web, and Microsoft's role.

Also in Focus on Accounting:

American Institute of Certified Public Accountants The AICPA is
the premier national professional association for CPAs in the
United States. This comprehensive site (approximately 2600 pages)
covers many topics, including an interesting series about the
Special Committee on Assurance Services.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
E. Barry Rice, Director, PIC-AECM
Pacioli International Centre for
Accounting Education using Computers and Multimedia

E-Mail: Rice@Loyola.edu (or) S-Mail: Loyola College in Maryland
Pacioli@Loyola.edu 4501 North Charles Street
V-Mail: 410-617-2478 Baltimore, MD USA 21210-2699

My assertions: "The traditional classroom is a dinosaur and ought to die!"
"Paper books will not be replaced by CD-ROMs. The
WWW/Information Highway will replace them!!"


Jensen's Index

Glossaries

FAQs

ACCT5342

Table of Contents

Professional Web Sites of Possible Interest

A Section in Bob Jensen's Bookmarks

 

Jensen's Index

Glossaries

FAQs

ACCT5342

Table of Contents

Fraud Prevention, Detection, and Auditing

Online News

Association of Certified Fraud Examiners

President's Report to the Nation
Occupational Fraud and Abuse

CPA Tech Online

CPA Journal

HMA News and Information

SAS 82 Supercedes SAS 53

SAS 82 Consideration of Fraud in a Financial Statement Audit

Implementation Initiatives

Recently Issued Auditing Standards

http://www.aicpa.org/feedback/shortfb.htm

Jensen's Index

Glossaries

FAQs

ACCT5342

Table of Contents