Q.State the five components of a Computerised Accounting System.

A computerised accounting system is built from five components that work together, not from software alone.

Hardware is the physical equipment, software is the operating system plus the accounting application, people are the users and administrators, procedure is the documented rules for entering and authorising data, and data is the source documents fed into the system.

A Computerised Accounting System is made up of five components, each essential to the system working correctly:

1. Hardware — the physical equipment on which the system runs: the computer itself, a printer, a scanner, networking equipment where several users share one database, and storage devices for backups.
2. Software — the operating system that runs the computer, together with the accounting application that actually performs the recording, posting and reporting.
3. People — the human users: the data-entry operator who enters vouchers, the accountant who reviews the output, the auditor who checks it, and the administrator who controls access rights.
4. Procedure — the documented instructions describing how a transaction should be entered, verified, authorised and reported, and who is permitted to do each of these things.
5. Data — the source documents (invoices, bills, vouchers, bank statements) that are converted into accounting entries and fed into the system; without accurate source data, even the best software produces unreliable output.

All five components are inter-dependent — the most sophisticated software is only as reliable as the people who operate it, the procedures that govern it, and the accuracy of the data entered into it.

Students often name only 'hardware and software' and forget that people, procedure and data are equally counted as components in this syllabus — all five must be listed to score full marks.