It has become evident that in this period of time a cost accounting system is necessary to the operations of the Greater Baltimore Medical Center. The lack of such a system has lead to the inability of effectively determining the profitability, total cost, cost components, and effectiveness of strategic initiatives on medical procedures and practices. This need will be filled by the utilization of software specifically aimed at cost accounting.
The following will describe business requirements for obtaining and implementing this cost accounting system. Several questions will be raised to bring light to the needs of the organization. Issues to be discussed will include software and hardware compatibility, report management, user-friendliness of the system, system maintenance and support, and budgetary decisions. .
The first question to be considered is what the company is looking to measure, and what software is available today that will fill this need. Once these simple requirements are established, the system must be analyzed to decide how it can be integrated and what the software is truly intended to do. The following are some of the needs required in the new software.
One need is for a system that will provide audit checks so that base source data may be validated with quarterly financial statement data. This becomes necessary to ensure the accuracy of the data. The system must be able to generate weekly, monthly, and quarterly reports to ensure cost accounting procedures are being followed. The system must be user-friendly as well so the managers using the system can obtain true benefits effectively and efficiently. A hard to use system can become counter-productive. If it is established that no software is readily available, then the decision to custom design a program will be necessary. The availability of software leads to other determining factors.
Compatibility of the software with the current operating system used by the organization is very important.