Chapter 6 Homework software is an extension of or add-on to an enterprise

Accounting Information Systems, 10e 1

SOLUTIONS FOR CHAPTER 6

Each end-of-chapter question in the Solutions Manual is tagged to correspond with AACSB, AICPA

and CISA standards, allowing professors to more easily manage the task of reporting outcomes to these

professional and accrediting bodies. Please see the corresponding spreadsheet file for the tagging

information.

Discussion Questions

DQ 6-1 What is the relationship between business intelligence (BI) and enterprise

systems, especially ERP systems?

ANS. BI software is an extension of or add-on to an enterprise system, not a completely

new installation or upgrade. In ERP systems, they are usually modules. BI is

DQ 6-2 What is a model? How is modeling a database or information system useful and

important from a business or accounting perspective?

ANS. Models are abstractions or simplifications of very complex phenomena; in our

domain we model business processes. Appropriate models help us understand

2 Solutions for Chapter 6

DQ 6-3 Discuss how you determine the placement of primary keys in relational tables to

link the tables to each other.

ANS. 1. Assign a primary key to every table.

DQ 6-4 How can primary keys and the linking of tables in a relational database affect

controls?

ANS. Technology Application 6-1 points out two ways the primary keys and linking

tables together help an organization achieve its internal control objectives. First,

DQ 6-5 Several steps are required when designing a database. List and describe the main

steps of this process.

ANS. The three main steps are:

• Prepare the conceptual model

o Identify the entities

o Identify the relationships between the entities

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DQ 6-6 Refer to Figure 6.12. To implement a many-to-many (M:N) relationship between

two relations, the figure demonstrates creating a new relation with a composite

key made up of the primary keys (Client_No and Employee_No) of the relations to

be linked. As an alternative, you might be tempted to simply add the fields

Employee_No to the Client relation, and Client_No to the Employee relation.

Discuss the reporting problems that might occur with that alternative strategy.

ANS. The problem begins when there is a true (M:N) environment. A simple example of

DQ 6-7 Although today’s enterprise systems incorporate many of the REA concepts, many

organizations continue to use legacy systems. Why do you believe this is true?

(Although the obvious answer is in the chapter, you may want to look to other

sources to support to your answer.)

4 Solutions for Chapter 6

ANS. A major issue is the cost of converting to new systems. Companies must look at

the incremental cost and incremental benefits. If the legacy system is providing 95

DQ 6-8 Although SQL is the de facto standard database language, there are many

variations of the language. Using the Internet (or other sources), answer the

following questions. What is a de facto standard? Provide examples (other than

SQL) of such standards. How does SQL (the primary database language) being a

de facto standard affect you, in your role of an information user?

ANS. When Googling de facto standard (in August 2006), the results included the

following entry from Webopedia:

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Short Problems

Note to instructor: There will be some variation in the solutions from your students to the

following short problems. Each solution below represents only one of the possible correct

solutions. Since all four short problems relate to inventory ordering, you can refer to Chapter 12

for more examples of solutions.

SP 6-1 ANS. Using Microsoft Visio, the model should look like this:

SP 6-2 ANS. Using Microsoft Visio, the model should look like the following diagram. Note

that the M:N relationship between Inventory and Purchase Orders requires the

addition of a relationship table.

SP 6-3 ANS.

CREATE TABLE VENDORS (Vendor_No Char (3) Not Null,

Vendor_Name VarChar (25) Not Null,

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SP 6-4 ANS. Note that this solution uses the tables as created and populated in the solution to SP

6-3 above.

SELECT PO_No, PO_Date, Vendor_Name

FROM VENDORS, PURCHASE_ORDER

8 Solutions for Chapter 6

SP6-5 ANS. Students should classify the entities in this situation into the following REA

categories:

Resources

Events

Agents

Locations

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Using Microsoft Visio, the redrawn REA diagram should resemble the following

figure:

SP 6-6 ANS. Student responses should show the following maximum cardinalities:

10 Solutions for Chapter 6

• A Customer can place many Sales Orders, but each Sales Order can be placed

by only one Customer; therefore, the relationship between Customer and Sales

Order is one-to-many.

be included on many Sales Orders; therefore, the relationship between Sales

Order and Inventory is many-to-many.

• A Sale can include many Inventory items, and an Inventory item can be

included on many Sales; therefore, the relationship between Sales and

Inventory is many-to-many.

• A Sale can result in the payment of many Cash Receipts, and a Cash Receipt

can be in payment of many Sales; therefore, the relationship between Sales

and Cash Receipts is many-to-many.

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Employees

(Salespersons)

Enter

Sales Orders Include

Inventory

Fulfill

Place

1

N

M

1

N

SP 6-7 ANS. Student answers will vary, but the following suggested answer is provided as a

grading guide:

Customers

Sales

Sales Orders

Customer_Number (PK)

Invoice_Number (PK)

Sales_Order_Number (PK)

Customer_Name

Invoice_Date

Sales_Order_Date

Street_Address

Customer_Number

Customer_Order

City

Sales_Order_Number

Employee_ID

Telephone

Fax

E-mail

12 Solutions for Chapter 6

Cash Receipts

Inventory

Employees

Remittance_Advice_Number (PK)

Inventory_Item_ID (PK)

Employee_ID (PK)

Remittance_Advice_Date

Inventory_Description

Employee_First_Name

Sales Orders – Inventory

Sales – Inventory

Cash Receipts – Sales

Sales_Order_Number (CPK)

Invoice_Number (CPK)

Remittance_Advice_Number (CPK)

Inventory_Item_ID (CPK)

Invoice_Number (CPK)

Sales_Order_Cost

Invoice_Cost

Sales_Order_Quantity

Invoice_Quantity

Problems

P 6-1 ANS. While there may be some variation in the solutions from your students, they

should be close to the following. The first SQL command adds the new column.

The next set of six SQL commands updates the table with the dates provided.

Note that in the WHERE statement any attribute that uniquely identifies that row

can be used—for example, Employee_No.

UPDATE

EMPLOYEE

Remittance_Advice_Amount

Employee_Middle_Initial

Customer_Number

Employee_Last_Name

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SET

WHERE

UPDATE

SET

WHERE

Employment_Date=20010103

Name=’Janet Robins‘

EMPLOYEE

Employment_Date=20040801

Name=’Christy Bazie‘

P 6-2 ANS. Your students will develop a variety of answers to this question. Here are

solutions that use three queries:

SELECT

EMPLOYEE.Employee_No, Name, Client_No, Date, Hours

FROM

EMPLOYEE, WORK_COMPLETED

14 Solutions for Chapter 6

P 6-3 ANS. Student submissions for this problem will vary depending on which database

product you have them use to complete the tasks. You can have students submit

P 6-4 ANS. The exact format of answers will vary depending on the database product that is

used. The submission for part c should resemble the figure in the chapter. If your

P 6-5 ANS. The answers that students develop for this problem will vary depending on which

spreadsheet software tool they use and on their individual abilities with the

software. Their answers should include an answer of 72 total hours billed for Fleet

Services.

P 6-6 ANS. Your students’ solutions will vary depending on which database software tool they

use. You can use the table specifications included in the answer to DQ 6-3 as a

P 6-7 ANS. Using Microsoft Visio, the maximum cardinalities for the E-R diagram should be:

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