What does the accounting information system mainly do and what are its functions? The following is a sample essay on accounting information system compiled by me, for your reference!
I. Introduction:
Throughout the history of accounting development, accounting has developed from simply recording events and reporting managers' operating performance to providing useful decision-making information for stakeholders inside and outside the organization. Accordingly, the goal of accounting has also expanded from reporting the release of fiduciary responsibility to optimizing resource allocation. However, judging from the current situation of accounting information quality in China, accounting not only fails to optimize the allocation of resources to a great extent, but sometimes even misleads the flow of resources and harms the interests of investors.
The low quality of accounting information is related to the quality of accounting personnel. Accounting regulations and standards are related, and many achievements have been made in this field. This paper tries to find another way, based on the relationship between corporate governance, enterprise management and accounting information system, and reveals how the quality of accounting information is subject to the environment and actively affects these environments from the theoretical level. The author's point of view is that accounting, as a part of enterprise management system, is inseparable from the company's management structure and governance structure. In an orderly and well-managed enterprise, accounting is bound to run well and provide reliable and relevant accounting information for internal and external decision makers. From the experience, those enterprises that provide false accounting information generally have weak corporate management and lack effective corporate governance structure. The author further believes that the deep-seated reason of accounting information distortion lies in the lack of perfect corporate governance system and effective corporate governance system in many enterprises in China. The performance and exertion of accounting responsibilities can not be separated from enterprise management and governance structure. Only by bringing accounting into the company's management and governance system can we understand the role and position of accounting in economic life, find the crux of the problem in reality and prescribe the right medicine.
Second, the integration of corporate governance and corporate management analysis model
At present, there are two tendencies in the research on corporate governance and corporate management, that is, corporate governance research only considers the narrow scope of corporate governance, in which internal supervision mechanism and incentive and restraint mechanism are mainly studied, while corporate management research only pays attention to the influence of external environment, corporate culture and management style, and rarely combines corporate management system with corporate governance system for comprehensive research.
In fact, corporate governance and management are closely related. According to the research conclusions of kirkland and Wartick, the potential conflict between corporate governance and corporate management is one of the contents of corporate governance, so the goal of corporate governance includes coordinating corporate governance and corporate management. The difference between governance and management depends on the enterprise theory model that defines the relationship between shareholders and managers in economics: shareholders only own the enterprise and do not participate in operation and management, and shareholders supervise the behavior of operators by electing the board of directors as their agent in company decision-making. Accordingly, corporate governance is regarded as related to the internal nature, purpose and overall image of the company, the importance, durability and integrity of the entity, while corporate management is more related to specific business activities. It can be considered that the difference between governance and management lies in:
(1) The center of governance is external, while the center of management is internal;
(2) Governance is a measurement and release system; Management is a closed system;
(3) Governance is strategic orientation and management is task orientation. In short, corporate governance focuses on "where will the company go" and corporate management focuses on "how to make the company achieve the above goals". At the same time, corporate governance and management are inseparable. Corporate governance and management may have a direct impact on the company's management and operation, but in general, corporate governance system can indirectly affect the company's management and operation by affecting the company's management system, and improve the company's management efficiency and effectiveness. In practice, it is generally believed that the board of directors specializing in corporate governance has participated in enterprise management to a great extent. Especially in the governance structure of countries such as Britain and America, the chairman is often the CEO of the company, and many senior managers are members of the board of directors. In view of the cross relationship between corporate governance and corporate management, some foreign scholars point out that corporate governance and corporate management should be studied together, and put forward a descriptive model. Some scholars in China have used its ideas for reference and constructed a comprehensive analysis model of corporate governance and corporate management.
The corporate governance system consists of internal supervision mechanism and external supervision mechanism. The balance mechanism of "three meetings and four powers" determined by China's company law is a typical internal supervision mechanism. External supervision mechanism refers to the supervision of external forces such as shareholders, capital market, manager market, product market, public opinion and national laws and regulations on enterprise management behavior.
Here, the company management system is described as consisting of three parts: first, the enterprise strategic objectives and decision-making system; Second, the organizational structure and management system of enterprises; The third is corporate culture and value system. According to the 7-S framework of the famous Mackenzie enterprise management system (factors include structure, strategy, system and procedure, personnel and team, skills and style). * * * with the same value), the first and second parts are mainly hardware elements, and the third part is mainly software elements. From the control point of view, in the company management system, the decision-making system, management organization system, management rules and regulations, and accounting audit system constitute the self-discipline mechanism of company management, which forms an inherent and institutionalized constraint on enterprise management behavior.
There are also two related systems in the model. The first is the external environment system of the enterprise, including politics, economy, social culture, customers and suppliers. Competitors, capital markets and other factors, they not only affect the corporate governance system, but also affect the corporate management system, and also constitute a part of the corporate governance system. The second is the company information network. It should be an integral part of corporate governance system and management system, and it is the basis of effective operation. Emphasizing this point is very important for China enterprises to establish an effective governance mechanism at this stage, because the governance structure of many joint-stock enterprises in China can't play its role, except for system defects and poor ability, and then lack of information to support effective decision-making and effective actions. This information is often provided by the self-discipline system of enterprise management, especially the accounting and auditing system.
Three. Accounting information system and corporate governance and management system
When the modern economy has objectively manifested itself as a triple world of real economy, monetary economy and digital economy, the management information network in modern enterprises is to a great extent a digital accounting information system [3]. Accounting is a part of enterprise management activities, which comes from enterprise management system. It discloses accounting information in the name of management authorities and is responsible for its reliability and authenticity. Accounting is also an indispensable part of corporate governance structure. Internal and external stakeholders can only understand and supervise enterprise management activities according to accounting information, and then make relevant decisions. The relationship between accounting information system and corporate governance and management system is analyzed as follows:
The corporate governance system consists of internal supervision mechanism and external supervision mechanism. The internal supervision mechanism is the mechanism by which the major shareholder ①, the board of directors and the board of supervisors supervise the business operators. In some cases, the internal supervision mechanism is the main body of corporate governance. On the one hand, it uses accounting information disclosed by enterprise management authorities to restrain and motivate enterprise managers. On the other hand, due to the special status of the internal control mechanism, it is obliged to ensure that the accounting system and auditing system of the enterprise provide systematic, timely and accurate accounting information to the shareholders' meeting, the board of directors, the board of supervisors and the outside world. When describing the scope of responsibilities of the board of directors, the American Association of Directors of Companies believes that the role of the board of directors in inspecting and supervising the internal management and control of enterprises includes: "determining the information needs of the board of directors and arranging for the timely provision of such information;" Evaluate the information flowing to directors every year to ensure the accuracy of this information. Integrity and reason. "
The external supervision mechanism includes the supervision of external forces such as capital market, product market and manager market on the business behavior of enterprises. The capital market plays the role of communicating information and allocating resources between capital providers and enterprises. The decision makers in the capital market are mainly small and medium shareholders and creditors. Because they do not directly supervise the operators, they are required to provide detailed and reliable financial data, and the securities market managers are required to formulate fair trading rules and standardize the supply of accounting information. The premise for the capital market to play its role is that enterprises actively disclose retained information, and the market can reflect the information disclosed by enterprises in time to realize the correct evaluation of enterprises.
The monitoring of enterprise by product market is realized through "vertical competition" among enterprises, suppliers and customers. There are both competition and coordination among modern enterprises. Competitiveness is the prerequisite for the product market to play its role. Socialized mass production requires enterprises to coordinate and cooperate with each other and maintain long-term and stable trading relations. During the transaction, the conditions proposed by both parties will often directly affect the specific content of the other company's business policy and management model, so both parties need to comprehensively collect the information of the other company's business situation to decide the content and mode of cooperation. And a large part of this required information on operating conditions comes from the accounting information disclosed by enterprises. In an effective manager market, enterprise managers are a special kind of human capital, and their value depends on market evaluation. In addition to knowledge, experience and credibility, there is also a key factor in market evaluation, which is the operating performance of managers during their term of office.
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