From Ledgers to ERP

Abstract

The chapter narrates the history of the accounting needs of individuals and organizations and explains their successive technological solutions, up to today’s ERPs. The ledger, double-entry accounting, cost accounting, departmental accounting, material requisitions systems for production, human resources systems, and finally the enterprise-wide resource planning or management systems are analyzed in terms of how IT has?and has not?been able to “computerize” and integrate them. The main functionalities of ERPs are explained: the enterprise resource functionality and the planning functionality, as well as to what extent organizations need these functionalities and should pay its high prices. The expectations that have not yet been sufficiently satisfied by current systems, such as the ERP for SMEs, the transfer of “best practices,” the interconnection of supply chains via ERP, and the ERP for global organizations, are discussed.