Reflections - Liqian

I feel that the greatest takeaway from this learning of Accpac is to appreciate the benefits of a computerised accounting system. The reports automatically generated shows the substantial amount of time that can be saved from preparing them. Recurring charge is another feature that proves the system's capability to reduce the effort of an accountant in entering similar transactions over regular periods.

However, it took us great effort in understanding and utilising its capabilities. The first setback was encountered when keying in the chart of accounts. After keying in a considerable number of accounts, I realized that these accounts were not captured into the system. With no solution to recover the keyed in data, we restarted the project. A few sessions later that there was actually no mistake in our first attempt in keying in the accounts, just that we were unfamiliar with the workings of the program that we were unable to retrieve it.

Like learning other computer programs, I had a hard time understanding the steps and procedures in processing the data. For example, in the AP, AR modules, some boxes have to be checked in order to export the report for printing and we were panicking when we have problem exporting, unaware that it was due to this reason.

As we grasp the basics of the system, the pace of progress speeds up a little, but there was still some effort in understanding the rationale in some of the steps and procedures.

I believe it might be interesting to be aware of what are the other accounting softwares available and the distinct features between each of them and what differentiates Accpac from the rest.

The project was challenging for a beginner in accounting software but the noteworthy part is that all the problems were overcome by my group of responsible and initiative groupmates.