Transaction Processing Systems (Essay Sample)

Transaction Processing Systems
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Transaction processing systems obtain and process data from an organization’s daily activities. The daily activities entail withdrawal, payment or an order among other trivial activities.
Clerk staff are involved in transaction processes within an organization. First, recording of a transaction such as registering a student, a cancelled order, or client’s payment. Another business activity is ascertaining an action such as printing receipts, sending invoice to customer, or generating customer’s receipt. Lastly, servicing data which entails updating old data, adding data, or deleting obsolete data (Antill & Clare, 1991).
Transaction processing structures were primarily computerized for data processing in organizations. It paved way for computerization of manual systems, an effort that greatly reduced staff cost, increased processing time and enhanced quality of services rendered to customers (Antill & Clare, 1991).
Batch processing was greatly used among the initial transaction processing systems. Data was collected over a specified period of time and then processed later collectively. Advancements in technology initiated development in online transaction processing whereby transaction are analyzed as they are individually fed into the system. Schools usually use online transaction processing whereby a student’s schedule is keyed in and the clerical staff authorize printing of the student’s timetable. However, invoices are mostly printed collectively whereby there are printed and student’s notified when to collect them.
Nowadays, organizations use online transaction processing for most of their activity processing systems. However, for routine business activities such as invoicing and generation of paychecks, batch processing is preferred to online processing structures. Therefore, batch processing although outdated in still in use in some organizations (Prakken, 2000).
A transaction processing system has some inherent positive and negative impacts to the users. Clerical staff can perform some of the business activities such as recording receipts, harmonizing paychecks and also filling invoices faster than a computer. When information is urgently needed, this facet of time is advantageous.
Conversely, time has also its shortcomings. Computerizing systems of the entire organization usually consumes a lot of time to initiate and implement especially for large organizations. In order to computerize all departments in large companies, the process is done in phases which could be very slow. Furthermore, a lot of time is consumed training new and old employees on how to use computerized systems. Finally, system failure could cause a lot of time to be wasted especially if there are no manual records (Prakken, 2000).
Transaction processing systems are highly accurate although this feature depends on the information keyed in by the clerical staff. Computerized system may not be in a position to detect exaggerated figures, wrongly spelt names or receipts foregone by the clerical employees. Moreover, internal weaknesses such as employee motivation, inadequate skills and poor supervision are still persistent even with computerized transaction processing systems in place.
Another positive impact is that computerized transaction processing systems reduce the risk of long-term embezzlement coupled with fraud within an organization. In-built features such information replication, audit automation and transaction monitors usually detect dubious staff activity. Reporting procedures are also put in place to curtail any malicious activities. However, transaction processing systems are not completely error-free. They lack discretion and integrity of data, two aspects that can greatly compromise the transaction processing system.
Lastly, transaction processing systems cut on the size of the organization’s accounting department. Moreover, with increased training and better supervisors, lowly-skilled workers could be given a chance to work in the department. This saves on labour and employee hiring costs. On the other hand, equipment cost, upgrades, servicing and technical support could be very costly thus causing a strain on an organization’s resources (Zmud, 1983).
There several ways through which transaction processing systems could be enhanced. Among them is ensuring employees comply with a Technology Adherence Agreement. This includes regulating unauthorized sites that could contain viruses and a downloading policy. For functions such as excel, email and databases, the organization could consider software as a service option. It is a service able to provide online solutions to problems arising from various workstations. Furthermore, it makes data largely available throughout the orga...