Faculty of Arts, Business, Informatics & Education

ACCT29084 Financial Information, Systems and Assurance

What is this course about?

When the CEO or CFO (Chief Financial Officer) of a corporation signs a declaration on an annual report, stating that the financial statements provide a true and fair view of the company, how does he or she know that this is true? This course offers an overview of the technology and control issues involved in acquiring a reasonable level of assurance that the financial information you are providing to others, or using yourself to make decisions, is true and fair, accurate and timely.

What are the expected outcomes of the course?

On successful completion of this course, students should be able to:1. Analyse the contemporary technology issues facing the modern CFO 2. Examine the role of internal control systems for general control and systems control 3. Examine how control systems and information technology affect the usefulness and reliability of financial information 4. Evaluate and construct internal control plans for critical business cycles 5. Critically evaluate the role that poor financial information has played in cases of poor corporate performance 2011 Term Three For those of you taking the course on campus, the schedule will be published at http://timetabling.cqu.edu.au Brisbane, Flexible Learning, Melbourne, Sydney Approved assessment for this course is: Examination 60% Other 40% Assessment 1 10% Individual assignment Assessment 2 30% Individual assignment.

When is it offered?

Where is it offered? How is it assessed?

ALL ALL

What textbooks do I need to obtain?

Prescribed q Gelinas Jr., Ulric J. Dull, Richard B. Wheeler, Patrick R. 2012, Accounting Information Systems, 9th edn, SouthWestern Cengage Learning, Mason. Coordinator: Email: Phone: Gerard Ilott acct29084-admin@cqu.edu.au +61 7 49306799

Who do I contact?

Additional contact details may be found at: http://lecturer.cqu.edu.au/lecturer.jsp?term=2113&course=ACCT29084

Course Profile for: ACCT29084, 2011 Term Three - Page 1

Copyright CQUniversity

Information for Students for this Offering Study Schedule

Week Begin Date Module/Topic Chapter Events and submissions

1 2

31 Oct 11 07 Nov 11

Financial management, systems and technology Organising and managing financial information system documentation Organising and managing financial information database systems

1,2 & 3 4

14 Nov 11

5&6

4 5

21 Nov 11 28 Nov 11

Enterprise risk management part 1 - internal controls 7 Enterprise risk management part 2 - systems controls 8 & 9 Assessment item 1 All Students Individual assignment Due: 01 Dec 11

12 Dec 11

Financial systems and business processes part 1 revenue Financial systems and business processes part 2 expenditure

10 & 11

19 Dec 11

12 & 13

02 Jan 12

Financial systems and business processes part 3 - HR 14 & 15 & production systems Financial reporting systems 16 Assessment item 2 All Students Individual assignment. Due: 12 Jan 12

09 Jan 12

10 11 12

16 Jan 12 23 Jan 12 30 Jan 12

Acquiring and implementing financial systems Case studies in contemporary issues Course review

17

Course Profile for: ACCT29084, 2011 Term Three - Page 2

Assessment Submission
Hard Copy (when required) Off-campus students Submit hard copy, signed assignments to the Student Contact Centre, Building 5, CQUniversity, Rockhampton QLD 4702. q Access CQUcentral to print a personalised Assessment Cover Sheet for each assignment submission. Instructions for generating your coversheet are at: http://dtls.cqu.edu.au/FCWViewer/getFile.do?id=23407 On-campus students Submit hard-copy, signed assignments to Assignment Boxes located on your particular Campus - if none are available then submit to the Administration Office.
q

Central Queensland Campus Students should access CQUcentral to print a personalised Assessment Cover Sheet for each assignment submission. Instructions for generating your coversheet are via the link above. q Australian International Campus Students should access the personalised coversheet available at your Campus. Electronic Delivery (when required) All assignments submitted electronically must be through the Student Portal http://my.cqu.edu.au As submission methods may vary from the above please check details on your course website or with your course coordinator if in doubt. POLICIES AND PROCEDURES FOR ASSESSMENT Students must familiarise themselves with the following policies and procedures:
q

Assessment and examination policy and procedures Assessment of Coursework Policy Assessment of Coursework Principles Assessment of Coursework Procedures http://policy.cqu.edu.au Assignment preparation and presentation Guide for Students Faculty of Arts, Business, Informatics & Education 2011 Guide for Students http://content.cqu.edu.au/FCWViewer/getFile.do?id=40465 Assignment Presentation - http://fbi.cqu.edu.au/FCWViewer/getFile.do?id=17724 Referencing style The Faculty of Arts, Business, Informatics & Education generally uses the Harvard (Author/date) style of referencing except for education, history and law courses. More information on the styles used by various schools can be found at http://facultysite.cqu.edu.au/FCWViewer/view.do?page=3955 For LAWS courses http://www.lib.unimelb.edu.au/cite/law/index.html Applying for extensions - http://content.cqu.edu.au/FCWViewer/view.do?site=534 Assignment grading - Grades and Results Policy http://policy.cqu.edu.au What is plagiarism? - http://facultysite.cqu.edu.au/FCWViewer/view.do?page=3952 General student information (CQUcentral & Moodle) - http://content.cqu.edu.au/FCWViewer/view.do?page=11721

Faculty Guide

Course Profile for: ACCT29084, 2011 Term Three - Page 3

Guide for Students http://content.cqu.edu.au/FCWViewer/view.do?page=9177 OTHER IMPORTANT DATES Examinations: Standard Examinations: 6 - 10 February, 2012 Deferred/Supplementary Examinations: 2 - 5 April, 2012 Note: A recess is held during term. Please consult the CQU handbook for specific dates and other information at: http://handbook.cqu.edu.au Contacting Teaching Staff During the course, students should initially contact their local teaching staff to answer any queries related to the course that they may have. Contact details for local teaching staff can be found on the course website. If local teaching staff cannot fully answer the query or it is of a personal nature, students can contact the Course Coordinator. Student Contact A directory of assistance containing information for both on-campus and off-campus students will be provided on the web, before term starts, at: http://content.cqu.edu.au/FCWViewer/view.do?site=534 The university allocates every student an individual email address, the format of which is firstname.lastname@cqumail.com (e.g. john.citizen@cqumail.com). This is the official email address that the university will use for all email correspondence. Student emails can be accessed through http://my.cqu.edu.au . Students are expected to check their official email address on a frequent and consistent basis (at least once weekly). Students are encouraged to review the new Student Email Principles university policy relating to email communication at http://policy.cqu.edu.au which has been introduced to ensure all course and program updates are received.

Course Profile for: ACCT29084, 2011 Term Three - Page 4

Course information
Student use of the course website is mandatory. This is provided using the Learning Management System (LMS) which can be accessed through the MyCQU Student Portal: http://mycqu.cqu.edu.au/portal/dt. This course uses Moodle LMS. If you have difficulty logging in, please contact Helpdesk on (07) 4930 9233. Regular student access to email is required for this course. Regular student access to the Internet is required for this course.

Students are expected to follow a self-directed study schedule which meets the required deadlines.

Assessment
Continuous assessment/examination
To pass this course you must complete and submit ALL of the required assessment items outlined in this Course Profile, and you must obtain an overall mark of 50% or higher for the course.

Assignment submission
All assessment is to be submitted online via Moodle. An electronic drop-box facility will be opened in Moodle during Week 3. Details of this will be posted on Moodle.

Course Profile for: ACCT29084, 2011 Term Three - Page 5

Assessment details for ALL students

Assessment item 1 Individual assignment
Due date: Weighting: Length: Thursday of Week 5 10% 2,000 words (max).
ASSESSMENT

Objectives
This assessment item relates to the course learning outcomes 1 & 3 as stated on page 1. Assume that you are the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for a small-to-medium enterprise (SME) that provides engineering support to mining companies. You are concerned that your information technology support division is not providing adequate data maintenance and backups. The cost of providing complete backup and restore functions, with multiple servers and 24-hour support, would be beyond your companys budget. However, the consequences for not doing this could be disastrous. At a recent conference on business continuity planning, you hear of several SMEs in other industries who are using Cloud computing services to provide data backup and security. Representatives of these companies were saying that the Cloud service was transparent, and that the users of the data services would not even know that the data was stored off-site. Your SME is about to advertise a Request for Information for vendors of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. You resolve to include a requirement that the new ERP must support Cloud computing, and in particular, remote data management.

Required Part A (1,000 words max., 5 marks)

(a) Investigate which vendors sell ERP systems in Australia, and which of these are suitable for SMEs. (2 marks) (b) Which of the ERP systems identified in (a) above provide cloud computing services, and remote data management in particular? (3 marks)

Part B (1,000 words max., 5 marks)

Write a report on the benefits and risks of cloud computing for small-to-medium enterprises. Pay particular attention to reporting the risks. Conclude your report by advising whether or not your company should invest in cloud computing for remote data management.

Course Profile for: ACCT29084, 2011 Term Three - Page 6

The assignment will be assessed as follows: HD D Content The student displays The student shows command of the advanced knowledge. knowledge.

C The student displays a rudimentary understanding of the issues. The student has demonstrated an intermediate level of report writing skills, but the report is still difficult to evaluate.

P The student is able to present sufficient relevant facts appropriate to this case. The student has presented a basic level of report writing skill.

F The student has not demonstrated understanding.

Presentation

The student has presented a high quality report that is easy to read and evaluate.

The student has demonstrated an appropriate level of reporting skills.

The student lacks report writing skills.

Course Profile for: ACCT29084, 2011 Term Three - Page 7

Assessment details for ALL students

Assessment item 2 Individual assignment

Due date: Weighting: Length: Thursday of Week 9 30% 1,500 words (max), plus diagram and control matrix.
ASSESSMENT

Objectives
This assessment item relates to the course learning outcomes 2, 3 & 4 as stated on page 1.

Part A (1 diagram, 1 matrix, 20 marks)

Read Case D (Polis Grocers) on page 383 of the textbook (Gelinas et al 2012). Use it to answer Problem P10-2 on page 384. Assessment will be as follows: P10-2 (a) = 10 marks; P10-2 (b) = 10 marks. You are not required to answer P10-2 (c). Each part will be assessed according to: Completeness; Accuracy; Neatness of presentation (readability).

Part B (2,000 words max., 10 marks).

Explain how the control plans contained in the control matrix in Part A would affect the usefulness and reliability of Polis Grocers financial information. To do this, you will have to explain how internal controls and control frameworks (such as COSO ERM) operate to perform this function. Present your answer in the form of a business report, which will have as a minimum: 1. Executive summary; 2. Introduction; 3. Body (which should cover) a. The role of control frameworks; b. The roles of internal and systems controls in providing assurance in financial information; c. The purpose of these specific controls for providing assurance in financial information. 4. Conclusion. Only the report body will count towards your word count.

Course Profile for: ACCT29084, 2011 Term Three - Page 8

Examination
Due date: Weighting: Length: During examination period at end of term 60% Duration 3 hours

Examination conditions
The examination is open book. This means you may take any material into the exam room. You may take a non-electronic translation-only dictionary into the examination room in accordance with CQU policy. You may take a non-programmable, non-text-retrievable silent-only calculator into the examination room in accordance with CQU policy. Reading time: 15 minutes.

View the Universitys policy on examination in the Assessment of Coursework Policy at: http://policy.cqu.edu.au View important examination information at: http://handbook.cqu.edu.au/Handbook/information.jsp?id=126 The examination timetables will be made available later in the term. View the examination timetable at: http://www.cqu.edu.au/studinfo/admin/timetabling/index.htm Further information on the examination will be available on your course website during the term and within your revision lecture. NOTE: The examination information provided in this Course Profile also relates to Deferred and Supplementary Examinations. No separate advice will be provided in the case of a deferred/supplementary exam.

Course Profile for: ACCT29084, 2011 Term Three - Page 9