Financial information system definition

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What is a Financial Information System?

A financial information system is an organized approach to collecting and interpreting information, which is usually computerized. A well-run financial information system is essential to a business, since managers need the resulting information to make decisions about how to run the organization. This system can be used in many ways, including the following:

  • Ensure that there are sufficient funds on hand to pay for obligations as they come due for payment

  • Put excess funds to use in appropriate and reasonably liquid investments

  • Determine which customers, products, product lines and subsidiaries are the most and least profitable

  • Locate the bottleneck areas within the business

  • Determine the maximum amount of funds that can safely be distributed to investors in the form of dividends

  • Determine the maximum debt load that the organization can sustain

Related AccountingTools Courses

Accounting Controls Guidebook

Accounting Procedures Guidebook

New Controller Guidebook

Financial Information System Reporting

There are a number of ways in which to extract information from a financial information system, including structured reports that are run on a regular basis, ratio analyses, cash forecasts, and what-if analyses. A report writer module is used to construct the more commonly-used reports, while less frequently used data is downloaded through a query system.