ACT Implementing Transaction Accounting

From all perspectives, transaction accounting can be an extremely advantageous method of accounting. However, the initial effort to implement a transaction accounting system, and the extensive continual administrative support, is expensive.
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Organizations should consider the value and utility of transaction accounting. If the approach makes sense for your organization, you can plan for a gradual change to transaction accounting as new applications systems are phased into production. Effective transaction accounting is so different from existing charge-out system implementations that few organizations, if any, will be able to afford the luxury of retrofitting transaction accounting into computing processes that are currently in production.
When implementing transaction accounting, keep in mind that for a computing process to be a good candidate for transaction accounting, it must be composed of clearly defined transactions. While most computing processes do, at some point, possess this vital characteristic, a few processes do not lend themselves to this systematized method of charge-out. For example, in program development and testing, transactions can be defined for the assemblies, compilations, and links involved in the development work, but no well-understood input or output transaction has been defined for program testing. Therefore, program development is suitable for transaction accounting, but program testing is not.