Introduction
One of the major factors for realising the need of Computerised Accounting System is the overwhelming quantity of data in our organisations. The conventionally used paper filing system, text documents, and even spread-sheets may not suffice for the growing needs of tracking this voluminous and critical information. A simple solution to this situation is available in the form of a Database Management System (DBMS) (e.g. ‘Access’, ‘Oracle’, ‘SQL Server’, etc.) that provides a variety of software tools for organising, processing and querying data in a flexible manner.
As we now proceed to look into practical applications of computers in generating, storing, processing, and retrieving of accounting information, we will make an assumption that you are fairly conversant with the accounting framework and operating procedure – i.e. you have the required
domain knowledge. We also assume that you have adequate exposure to handling of computers and the concepts of database. However, we do not wish to make knowledge of the database management a pre-requisite for understanding of this chapter, and hence, we will restrict ourselves to the simpler and easy to comprehend ‘MS Access’ program for developing some practical accounting applications. In doing so, we will focus on the three major components of Access, namely, ‘tables’, ‘queries’ and ‘forms’. Having done that, we will examine the methods of generating reports. This basically builds on the concepts of DBMS already learnt by you in class XI.
5.1 UNDERSTANDING AND DEFINING THE DATABASE REQUIREMENT
With the continuous improvements in computer’s processing speed, storage capacity, networking techniques, operating systems, etc, the capabilities of computer applications have also gone up many folds. Various computer applications that are commercially available today not only provide fairly comprehensive tools for all conceivable needs but also have become extensively user friendly. So, when we look forward to putting into use database applications such as ‘Access’, we really do not need much of programming skills. Nevertheless, any programming knowledge may improve our efficiency and effectiveness in handling such applications. On the other hand, before we develop any database application, we ought to have a complete understanding of our requirements expected from the application. This is one area where application itself may not extend much help. Further, the correct understanding of our requirement also has a bearing on the choice of Database Management Systems (DBMS) - i.e. whether to go for a ‘desktop database’ or to choose the ‘server database’.
Box - 5.1
In most of the cases, database is not directly accessible to users. Any addition, modification or retrieval of information from database is done by the user-friendly programs. Database is thus rightly referred to as ‘back-end’ while the interactive program is termed as ‘front-end’ of a database application.
Click on the below link to download NCERT Class 12 Accountancy Computerised Accounting Spreadsheet Data Base Management System
