Rapid technological advances have eased accounting chores.
Many accounts still use manual ledgers or extensive manual account analysis rather than computers.
They may use computers for some processes but are more comfortable performing others manually. And when setting up their accounting software systems, they may also mistakenly rely heavily on the advice of system consultants with no background in accounting. Computers may have revolutionized accounting procedures. But this revolution presents many new challenges, starting with selecting the right computer hardware and software. For example, management can't request financial-activity summaries by department and division if the chart of accounts isn't structured to produce reports in that format.