RESEARCH – JOURNAL OF FINANCE AND ACCOUNTING
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.0 Background of the Study
The emerging global economic scenario characterized by advancement in information technology, rapid changes in production processes, increased sophistry of the consumer, fierce market competition and unethical skimming activities of producers in the drive to survive the unpredictable and complex business dynamics (Curtis, 1995). Further that IT has brought to the fore the crucial role of accounting information in economic and business discourse especially in relation to effectiveness AIS in financial performance.
As we all know, accounting speaks the language of business as it records all transactions of an individual firm or other bodies that can be expressed in monetary terms. Predicated on the going concept, accounting is the scheme and art of collecting, classifying, summarizing and communicating data of financial nature required to make economic decisions (Curtis, 1995). Accounting Information System (AIS) is vital to all organizations (Borthick & Clark, 1990; Curtis, 1995; Wilkinson et al., 2000) and perhaps, each organization either profit or non-profit-oriented need to maintain the AISs (Wilkinson, 2000). On the other hand, an AIS is the whole of the related components that are put together to collect information, raw data or ordinary data and transform them into financial data for the purpose of reporting them to decision makers (Yang et.al. 2011, Mahdi Salehi, et.al., 2010).
For better understanding the AIS, three words of AIS are elaborated separately. Firstly, “accounting” which is a language of business, which records all the financial or monetary transactions (Salehi, M. et.al, 2010). Second is “information”, which is the processed form of all financial transactions data which is used by decision makers. Lastly, according to Thomas & Kleiner (1995) and Bhatt G.D. (2010), “system” is an integrated entity which focuses on the set of objectives.
Bungoma County Government is one of the 47 counties in Kenya which came into operation when the new constitution was promulgated in August 2010. This paved way for the creation of the 47 counties and decentralized power to them in bringing closer delivery of services to the citizens. One of its core functions of the county government is to fully ensure effective management of funds allocated by the national government (New constitution, 2010).
Accounting information systems (AIS) as a part of county’s information systems (IS) are seen as facilitating effective financial performance and can be tailored to suit county government’s environment, requirements of task, and structure. An accounting information system is a structure that it is used to collect, store, manage, process, retrieve and report its financial data so that it can be used by accountants, consultants, business analysts, managers, chief financial officers (CFOs), auditors and regulatory and tax (Hadi Saeidi et.al., 2015)