Proceedings

Web-based applications in accounting are considere as one of the most important
innovations brought to this function of the business (Deshmukh, 2006).
For the presentation part at the level of user interface, web-based applications use
simple systems (Internet browsers). The application part and the database require a
complex relational system facilitated by the development of communication
techniques via Internet.
A web-based accounting system, unlike the CBAS, is unitary as a function but
distributed in space, from the point of view of the inclusion area, of database and
hardware support. This is because it is based on the use of communication
technologies and the resources of some servers and less on the resources of the users’
computers. The technology used is based on XML with multiple data (content)
storage and transmittal capacity. What made these systems really strong and
unanimously accepted is their capacity to storage and transmit any type of
information, be it a picture, film, drawing, complex mathematical calculations, but
especially digits.
Accounting is one of the business functions that had developed faster in the area of
web-based informatics systems, as compared to other functions. The capacity of web
technologies to storage and transmit accounting information in real time, this is in the
moment the described event is produced or appears, turns accounting into an active
function, not a “post-active” one, being a function even more integrated into the
operational management (Deshmukh, 2006).
SMEs, as the most dynamic and innovative branch of business, could not remain
expectative to this informational explosion. Because from reasons of financial
restraint they could not always afford the buy or build these systems (in house) like
ERP, which is considered as the most complex accounting application at the time
being, it was the turn of the developers of accounting applications to meet the needs
of the SMEs. The sellers of ERP software like SAP, Oracle and Microsoft, offer now
enterprise software at a low price.
If from the point of view of the cost the problem was more or less solved, from the
point of view of efficiency and use of these software things are still at the beginning.
It is claimed that within SMEs only 10-20% of the capacities of an accounting
software are being used. (Pederiva, 2010). The reasons of this reduced use of capacity
of accounting software within the SMEs are multiple, and we mention as possible
causes: a construction which is too sophisticated and not adapted to the needs of the
SMEs and the lack of education and training of the users of such systems.
There are two main directions for accounting in this sector. On the one side the
facility of collecting and processing accounting information and on the other side the
integration of accounting in the business function and transmittal of accounting
information in due time to the users. In other words this is the development of
accounting itself and on the other side the perfecting of reports and integration of
accounting in business.
Both can be done in real time with the help of web-based technology. In the following
we shall present the main characteristics of web-based accounting as well as the
factors that could influence the adoption of web-based accounting by the SMEs.
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