Paul Linkchorst

3. Controls are important to financial and accounting processes. What would be different in the controls of a purely domestic US company vs. an international company? Give 1 – 2 specific examples.

First off, the quantity and effectiveness of controls depends on the type of regulations put in place on certain companies. I know in the United S…[Read more]

2. As we continue to learn about business processes and ERP systems we often discuss financial or account related terms and concepts. How much finance and accounting knowledge should IT personnel supporting business applications know and learn? Explain

I think it is important for IT personnel to that the skill or knowledge in understanding…[Read more]

1. As we’ve seen in the P2P and OTC Processes many different often non-financial business functions are involved with ERP system transactions that post to accounting records. If you are responsible for Finance / Accounting controls for your company how would you manage the risks coming from these non-Financial function jobs?

As a person r…[Read more]

So I was able to solve this problem. I was thrown of by not understanding what NSLOOKUP is suppose to do. The purpose of this command is to identify the IP address of computer by entering in the name computer. Therefore by doing NSLOOKUP *computername*, it shows the computer’s IP address.

Hi Everyone,

I seemed to hit a snag on Challenge 3 – Step 8. I am unable to run the NSLOOKUP effectively. It states that the DNS server times out after 2 seconds and won’t show any results. I tried turning off the firewall on the DC-1 VM and that seemed to remove the timing out temporarily, however, it still says server is unknown. Another…[Read more]

J&J warns diabetic patients: Insulin pump vulnerable to hacking

According to the article found from Reuters, Johnson & Johnson, the medical device and pharmaceutical company, has recently announced that its OneTouch insulin pump products are vulnerable to hacking. While one may think of hacking to only take place on computers, it turns out…[Read more]

EMP stands for Electromagnetic pulse, which is essentially a short burst of electromagnetic energy. This pulse if strong enough, can cause damage or destruction to electronic computers posing as a significant threat to businesses. The article I found in the New York Times on EMPs (see below) is revolved around how an EMP can be used as a weapon…[Read more]

Hi Andres,

I agree. I like to hope that users will see the “Secret” conversations and ask “How comes this isn’t the standard?”. However, I think for the majority of users they won’t even use this function while the remaining will likely just think of it as a way that deletes a message after a certain time without understanding the real…[Read more]

Hi Josh,

Good point about physical cash in the Order to Cash process. When these questions are raised I usually think of huge multinational businesses. However, companies as small as restaurants (could be franchises too) should be concerned with the controls over cash handling. As you said, cash is so desirable since it can easily be stolen…[Read more]

Hi Yulun,

I think specialization also helps in this situation since Sales can focus on winning new clients or entering new markets while finance can focus on making sure payments are received and utilizing a company’s financial resources efficiently. You bring up a good point though about segregation of duties. Separating out these two f…[Read more]

Hi Abhay,

I wasn’t sure if the accounting department would be considered under finance or not for the question. Regardless I still think Finance should be the department more concerned. To answer your question, if a company has a dedicated team, such as Finance, to collecting payments then I would say that sales department would be wasting t…[Read more]

Hi Priya,

You bring up a good point about how the ordering process must be efficient and effective from a customer standpoint. I think one of the reasons for Amazon’s success is their initial ability to create a simplified ordering process that customers liked and relied upon. If any confusion for the customer did occur, they might not go t…[Read more]

4. You’ve now seen the entire Order to Cash (OTC) Process. If you were responsible for the controls of this process – what would keep you up at night (e.g. be your area of most concern)? Explain

For myself, I think the ordering sub process would the area to most keep me up at night. First, none of the other sub processes can start wit…[Read more]

3. Controls are important in all the OTC processes including invoicing and collections. What would be different in the controls of a purely domestic US company vs. an international company? Give 1 – 2 specific examples.

As I have stated before, I think foreign exchange risk will have a different impact on the invoicing and collections p…[Read more]

2. Who in an organization should care more about the collections process – Finance or Sales? Explain

Overall, I think the accounting department are the ones who should care most about the collection process since they are the one’s involved in the receiving and recording of payments from sales. However, if I had to choose from Sales and Fin…[Read more]

1. Assume you’re an outside organization with goal to cause negative things to happen to an organization’s Order to Cash (OTC) process. Where would you attack it? Explain Why and How

If I were an organization attempting to cause negative things to another organization, I would make an attempt on its ordering and order fulfillment pro…[Read more]

Hi Wenlin,

You mentioned that VPN’s are good at protecting against Man in the Middle Attacks. While I did know that “bad guys” can monitor an individual’s web traffic to potentially pick up any usernames and passwords, I didn’t know that “bad guys” could sit in-between a user and the internet. According to the video I linked below, man in…[Read more]

Hi Binu,

That is an interesting point that you brought up about using the EMUE code to connect to the network for remote access. I think in today’s environment with smart devices, those remote access applications are likely more easy to implement and are more “user friendly”. However, companies now have to worry about their devices secur…[Read more]

Hi Ian,

Thanks for the summary of the advantages and disadvantages of the OSI Model. Just looking at the model in our text, it seems the the entire model is very vague with alot of references to different protocols. For example, the application layer references the HTTP, File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Simple Main Transport Protocol (SMTP), or…[Read more]

Hi Deepali,

Interesting point about donating the scrap metal to a good cause. Maybe this will encourage or motivate employees when performing their duties for this control since it is benefiting those in need and not seen as a “waste”. Likewise, companies might change their policies on how long it keeps obsolete items since these items will…[Read more]