Accountant perspective and implementation of enterprise resources planning (ERP) in SMEs

Abstract

This study aims to directly investigate the degree of satisfaction that top management has with ERP systems by analyzing the potential benefits that small and medium-sized businesses can receive from the implementation of ERP systems in four aspects, accounting, organizational, external, and internal, that the implementation of ERP systems may bring to small and medium-sized companies. To measure accountants' perceptions of ERP implementation in their companies, a survey of a sample of 100 accountants was conducted. To test the hypotheses, discriminant analysis for dimension reduction was used by selecting factorial analysis. This research was conducted using a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach with partial least squares (PLS) as the testing tool. Empirical evidence from a web-based survey with 100 SMEs in Banten confirms that ERP systems bring various benefits including organizational, external, and internal for SMEs, and several accounting benefits derived from ERP systems especially for accounting processes. These findings will be valuable for any business looking to implement ERP with more complete modules in SMEs and significantly contribute to the existing knowledge of ERP benefits for SMEs in a resource-based scholarly view.