Accounting Processes and the Accountant's Role in AIS: An Instructional Resource

This paper outlines an Accounting Information Systems (AIS) manual practice set that is purely accounting-oriented. AIS faculty make extensive use of manual practice set projects in upper-division courses. A common feature of projects is their substantial bookkeeping component. In addition to their accounting components, such projects usually require students to perform the tasks of clerk and bookkeeper for the main business processes—sales, cash receipts, cash disbursements, purchases, and payroll—before beginning each accounting task. This amount of repetitive work can be tedious and time-consuming. The accounting-oriented practice set offered here (available free of charge with proper citation) requires only accounting and auditing tasks. Yet it enables students to gain an appreciation of AIS, and to carry their understanding into other systems, including computerized environments. This is consistent with the stated objective of increasing the student's information system skills, as opposed to teaching bookkeeping skills. The paper also explains why this teaching approach may be preferable.