Accounting In Action Business Insight
The River Oaks Country Club is an exclusive private club in the Houston metropolitan area. It has more than 1,500 members, and monthly billing can be a big project without the use of computers. Mel Samuelson, chief financial officer of the club, comments that he could not imagine how cumbersome the system would be if month end closing and billing had to be done manually. “It only takes us one day to do our month end closing with computers,” said Samuelson. “If every transaction for all 1,530 members has to be done by hand, it may take at least a week just for the closing.” Mr. Samuelson also adds that with the use of computers, all postings are updated on a daily basis, making information accessible and real time. As Mr. Samuelson suggests, computers do provide more accurate and updated information. More important, this also means that the associates in the accounting office can now use the time saved to do other, more meaningful analysis of data, thereby providing better information to management and better service to its members.