Bakery B’s Challenges

A baker is an individual who bakes and sells bread, cakes and pastries. The place where the baker conducts his business activities is known as a bakery.

B Bakery has been chosen as the case study in this report. It is basically a family business. The organisation is nearly fifty years old. Bakery B is known to bake bread, confectionary items and sells them in the pub-chains and the supermarkets. The organisation has seen many ups and downs since last fifty years (Lam, 2015). However, in recent years, B Bakery has experienced a growth because of the new business initiatives. They have currently seventy employees working in the company. The sales revenue of the company gets enhanced to $ 13.5 million.

However, they are concerned about the issues that creep out. They lose some key accounts as they fail to deliver the best service to the customers. They lose the customer trust and the customer base. B Bakery faces heavy losses and falls behind other bakery companies. Bakery B is struggling to take orders effectively. Bakery B cannot be able to track the inventory well. They are struggling as they do not have the latest update of the stock. They cannot monitor the employees well. Thus they are completely unaware of all the business activities (Kowalewski & Niedzielska, 2015). Besides they are not getting the customers’ purchasing list. Bakery B enter financial and accounting data into the system all by manually thus it takes a longer period of time. For this reason, they are suffering to manage the customer data, the sales and inventory. They may have multiple IT software installed within the system; those applications are not properly integrated and thus giving complex and mixed results.

Bakery B appoints an accountant to manage the entire inventory and the financial data of the company. However, they have realised that they need accounting software to manage the inventory and the employees so that they can conduct the business activities efficiently. Bakery B is suffering from the due to the lack of quality accounting software (Sampaio & Bernardino, 2016). They are suffering from the lack of security, the malware attack and insider threats can lead to data loss and security breach. The employees enter data once face immense difficulties to get them back. The software and the technology they use are outdated and lack efficiency. The applications they use are not at all efficient and fast. Again, the applications they use do not integrate with the rest of the applications. The prevalent system is also restricting the employees to communicate with the customers. They cannot provide 24×7 services to the customers (Lee, 2017). That is why they are not able to provide quality customer service. The prevalent system of the company is not at all fast and effective. Speed is an issue for this project. Since Bakery B is looking to configure best accounting software for their premises they must choose the best software that can provide them with the best solutions. 

Advantages of Accounting Software

Bakery B must install and configure accounting software for their business. The accounting software is an absolute necessity for them. The software must provide access to financial and accounting information properly. The accounting software also provides cloud computing services. The cloud computing offers facilities- the employees of the company can access the financial data anywhere (Aduamoah et al., 2017). The data of the company can be accessed by the employees from the desktop machine and from the mobile device. The accounting software provides data backup and security. The financial data can be shared with all the stakeholders all the time. The cost-effective solutions are provided by the accounting software. Bakery B can save lots of money and can earn more and more revenues and so accounting software adaptation is necessary. Bakery’s business efficiency can get enhanced due to the business. The accounting software efficiency can help Bakery B to conduct the business operations in an agile and effective manner so accounting software adaptation is an utmost necessity. The prevalent system of Bakery B contains multiple flaws and because of the software failure Bakery B is suffering loss (Rahman, 2016). Thus it is important for Bakery B to install the latest and best accounting software that can help the stakeholders of the company to carry out the business activities flawlessly. Bakery B needs to prevent data loss. The company needs to prevent unauthorised access. The accounting software is capable to provide security to Bakery B.   

There are certain advantages which are associated with the adaptation of accounting software in the system. Manual bookkeeping is time-consuming. The accounting software will save a lot of time of Bakery B. Accounting software facilitates automatic bookkeeping and financial monitoring. Error-free and efficient financial data can be evaluated by the assistance of the accounting software (Lyons, 2015). Bakery B can manage the cash by implementing the accounting software in the system. The latest accounting software is relatively easy and simple to use. Less training is required for the software. The accounting software is also helpful in minimising the mistakes. The accounting software is capable to generate correct results automatically. The accounting software offers cloud-based scalable solutions and all these data can be accessed anywhere anytime and from any devices. The accounting software also aids computerised invoicing. Bakery B can record the customers’ payment data with the help of the software. The company can acknowledge what customers will have to pay with the help of the accounting software (Flaherty, 2018). The accounting software is helpful to track the inventory. Accurate inventory can be measured by the usage of the software. The business process details can be known by the accounting software as well.

Comparison of Three Accounting Software

The accounting software provides facilities to conduct business activities online over the website and mobile app. They need to adopt cloud computing services offered by Amazon AWS or Microsoft Azure to conduct business securely and effectively (Dimitriu & Matei, 2015). They need to have Windows or Mac devices to carry out the online activities over the website and IOS and Android mobile platform to carry out the business activities over the mobile phone. The management staffs and the employees of B Bakery must be well acquainted with the software and cloud computing services (Flaherty, 2018). The management team must train their employees so that they can use the accounting software and cloud services effectively for the betterment of the company. 

The three websites SAP, MYOB, Xero have been visited and a detailed comparison among the three sites has been done in this report.

It can be concluded from the functional scores that Xero accounting software is the best. Bakery B must make full use of Xero to furnish their business.

Bakery B can get maximum benefits by implementing the high-end accounting software. The software implementation lowers IT related expenses. It can improve the efficiency of the business activities. The management staff can get an overall view of all the business operations of Bakery B. The accounting software can help the business to monitor the inventory levels regularly. The accounting software is also useful in generating financial reports. The software has a built-in feature for which they provide detailed income and cash flow reports (Rahman et al., 2014). The accounting software is useful in reduced IT and training costs. The workforce of Bakery B can work fast and in an effective manner by implementing the high-end accounting software. The sales team can be able to serve better to the customers with the aid of the software. They can have the customers’ details, customers’ purchase history details. Thus the sales team can offer discounts and offers and can attract them. Thus a high-end accounting software solution is beneficial to retain their customer base. The software also offers data security. Bakery B can safeguard the sensitive data of the customers. They can protect the financial data of the company from getting breached with the assistance of the high-end accounting software solution. The accounting software also improves collaboration and workflows. The software eases interdepartmental collaboration. The data from each and every department of Bakery B can be funnelled into one centralised area with the help of software (Fordham & Hamilton, 2017). Bakery B can conduct e-commerce activities from online website and mobile app with the help of the high-end accounting software solution. The software also aids easy data access, data storage and data process. Thus the high-end accounting software solution can provide multiple advantages to Bakery B by which they can furnish their business activities. Xero is one such high-end accounting software solution they should use for their business.

Why Xero is the Best Option for B Bakery

Three accounting software has been chosen for the report, among the chosen three, the Xero is the most effective one. Between MYOB and SAP, the MYOB is slightly better than the SAP. The report will explain the features offered by the two soft wares in the following table-

Features	MYOB Essentials	Xero
Set up procedures	The software works online, the software can be accessed by the mobile, tablet and the computer	Xero works completely online and the software can be accessed
Software updates	The software gets updated all the time (Devine et al., 2016)	The software vendor updates the software automatically so that the customers can get best services all the time, the software is updated all the time
Software backup	The software vendor constantly offers online backup and security	Xero provides the online backup as well as security
Multiple user access	MYOB offers multiple user access	Xero is also known to provide multiple user access (Wahab et al., 2017)
Simplicity to use	Users can easily use the application	Xero typically works fast, it is effective. The accounting software is relatively simple to use.
Reporting speed	The reporting speed for the accounting software much higher. Only one report run at a single instance of time	Reporting speed is much higher. Xero has the capability to run multiple reports at the browser tabs at a single instance of time
Quotation system	A quotation system is offered by MYOB (Wongsim, Srimontree & Phosri, 2017)	Xero accounting software provides the quotation system. the customers by accepting the quotes can convert those quotes into active jobs
Invoices	MYOB can send invoices	Xero accounting software is capable to send invoices, using nice templates, logo and details (Quinn & Kristandl, 2014)
Receiving payments	The customers of MYOB use multiple online payment procedures including PayPal. The customers can connect to the online store	Xero customers can use multiple payment methods that include PayPal as well. the customers can connect to the online store with the aid of the accounting software
Receipting payments	Payment from the customer can be applied to a lot of invoices at once (Wongsim, Srimontree & Phosri, 2017)	Xero either performs quick batch payments or use the bank reconciliation screen. Xero first our keyword search, then the software vendor applies payment to numerous invoices
Payroll	Allows payroll only for one person	Xero allows payroll for the payslips and the summaries.
Employee Logins	The customers can use MYOB only after paid subscription	Xero customers can access the portal for free however, paid subscription will help to use the Xero to the fullest
Client Cards	In case of MYOB, no purchases can be processed against a customer card, and no sales can be processed against  supplier card (Wahab et al., 2017)	In case of Xero, a single contact represents both the consumers and the suppliers
Fixed resources or assets	The fixed resources or the assets can be added as add-on	Xero comes with built-in Asset Register. The Asset Register contains many options
Follow up debts	MYOB follow up the debts	Xero follows up debts with nice templates. The software is made to meet all the business deliverables
International Currency	It is not available for this software, however, the feature can be incorporated as add-on to the accounting software	Xero has the capability to provide multi-currency with rates evaluated at the current date
Expense claims	MYOB do not provide this feature	Xero handle all the expense claims, it performs quite well in handling all the expenses (Quinn & Kristandl, 2014)
Budget	MYOB has numerous hidden fees and the software comes with several confusing versions and the features are quite expensive, the features cost heavy	Xero offers maximum services at minimal cost. It is known to provide the cost-effective service

Table 1: Comparison between MYOB and Xero

(Source: Created by author)

Xero accounting software is best suited for B Bakery. The company can manage the home bakery business online over the cloud platform. The software can be accessed from anywhere anytime from any devices. The B Bakery can conduct their business from the smartphone, PC and Mac devices. The company can keep track of the customers. B Bakery can monitor all the customers’ activities. They can acknowledge all the customers’ purchase lists. They can know the customers’ wish lists. They can know the products which customers surf online. Thus with the aid of Xero, the bakery company can keep a record of the employees’ details, also they can print out the customer activity reports. Xero can record customers’ birthday and anniversaries.  The bakery business can be able to proactively market on those special days to the customers. B Bakery can showcase all the food products online. They can fix price for those products or recipe. The customers can know the price and buy those recipes online (Dhar, 2018). The customers can even track their orders. They will come to know about when and what time they will get the product. Thus Xero can facilitate the customers in several ways.

Xero will keep photos or sketches of the finished product and will keep a record of all the orders. Xero will keep a record of the orders from the time it is placed until the end when it is delivered. Xero sends email or pdf invoice to the customers. Thus Bakery B can send emails and pdf invoices to the customers so that the customers can get to know every detail of the orders made. Xero helps to keep records of the deposits and helps to schedule future payments (Wahab et al., 2017). Xero prints out reports and those reports are helpful in knowing the payments which are upcoming or overdue. The customers of Bakery B can get a detailed overview of all the food products they order. Xero also provides Pricing Calculator. The Pricing Calculator is helpful for the customers of Bakery B to place orders effectively so that they can earn a profit. Xero also prepares a shopping list. The customers can know the products which they have ordered. Bakery B can know the details of the products ordered by the customers. Bakery B can acknowledge the customers’ shopping patterns. They can know the customers’ wish list (Rahman et al., 2014). Xero can help Bakery B to evaluate the financial data. Xero will help them to know the budget required to prepare bakery items.

Bakery B will have a record of the bakery products they make. Bakery B can calculate the number of orders they need to serve in a particular week or a particular month. Xero will help the bakery business to calculate the revenues, in this way Bakery B will be able to earn maximum profit. The accounting software will help Bakery B to know the shipping address details where the food items need to be delivered (Rahman et al., 2014). The accounting software will help to prepare and deliver bakery items within the given time period. Thus it can be stated that the accounting software, Xero can play a significant role in furnishing the business activities of Bakery B. The customers of the company will similarly benefit from this approach. 

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