Target Market Profile

Four ways to identify target markets

Use these four category areas as you collect information to identify and define your target market:
1. Geographics: The location, size of the area, density, and climate zone of your customers.
2. Demographics: The age, gender, income, family composition and size, occupation, and education of your
customers.
3. Psychographics: The general personality, behaviour life-style, rate of use, repetition of need, benefits sought,
and loyalty characteristics of your customers.
4. Behaviours: The needs they seek to fulfil the level of knowledge, information sources, attitude, use or response
to a product of your customers.

Example:

The target market profile

The target market process allows us to break down these groups of people so we can better understand how to reach
them. One way to do this is to create a target market profile. Here is an example of a target market profile:
1. Geographics:
 Lives within the M25.

2. Demographics:
 Married.

 Between the ages of 21-35.

 At least one child.

 Flat or home owner.

 Education experiences – university level.

 Earning a combined annual family income of £50,000 or greater.

3. Psychographics:
 Values time and considers it their single most limited resource.

 Excited about accepting and using innovative ideas and products.

 Consistent Web users. Prefer the Internet over magazines and newspapers for information they trust.

 Increasing resources invested into safety and security issues.

 Beginning to plan for their future.

4. Behaviours:
 They are leaders in product selection and respond to the opinions of the “industry experts” when making
purchase decisions.

 This group will first look to the Internet to acquire this information.

 They defend these decisions under most any circumstance and will adamantly “sell” those that ask why they
use the product or service and why they made the choice they did.

 This group can be a powerful, unpaid sales force resulting from the referral network they build and use.
 Objectives of Accounting System
An accounting information system provides accurate and timely financial information for
internal management purpose. These systems provide financial or operational reports for
business owners to make decisions. An accounting information system can also integrate
and fulfill departmental and company-wide objectives.

Central Information Collection

 Accounting information systems collect information for various purposes in a business.
Large organizations often use this system to gather and organize financial and other
information from multiple business departments or divisions. An accounting system can
also benefit organizations with several national or international locations. This system
allows for the electronic transference of information from many sources into a central
location where accountants gather and process this data. Some systems can also gather
information in a real-time format.

Checks and Balances

 Accounting managers and supervisors use an accounting information system to separate
tasks and ensure controls are in place for different accounting functions. Accounts payable,
accounts receivable, payroll, departmental financial data, fixed assets and purchasing each
work under separate modules in an advanced accounting system and demand individual
handling processes and procedures. Each of these individual modules feed summarized data
into the general ledger but allow for system checks and balances along the way. Reports can
be generated from individual modules to ensure accuracy of data before being passed on to a
company's general ledger.

Improving the Flow of Work
 Improving the flow of work in individual departments often gets a boost by the
implementation of an accounting information system. Departments outside of accounting
must understand how critical information is processed through the company's internal
financial information system for a variety of reasons. Source documents--such as invoices,
purchase orders, employee expense reports, time cards for payroll input, bills and asset
acquisition forms--must all find their way from the originator to the accounting department.
Depending upon the software, the accounting system requires a variety of information for
different parts of the process be manually input into the system. This often determines the
work flow of other departments in regards to processing financial data. Procedures and
processes that clearly delineate the needed information, the steps to process that
information and the approval process, aid in reducing redundant work and ensure that the
accounting department has the necessary approvals to process financial data.

Whether your accounting system is simple or complex, it must meet certain objectives to keep your business running
smoothly. It's difficult to make informed business decisions without accurate accounting information that helps you
see where you are, where you've been and trends of where you're headed. The accounting system should be a tool
that provides information that is easy to understand in the format you need.

The primary objective of an accounting system is to help you track the income and spending of your company.
Comparing the two gives you a snapshot of the company's profits or losses, although there are often other factors
that determine whether your company is successful. A month showing a loss is understandable if you purchased a
large piece of equipment that month, for example. To create any reports you need, it's imperative to track where the
money is coming from and where it's going.

Accurate reports are critical to your ability to make business decisions. An accounting system should be able to
provide custom reports so you can examine every aspect of your income and expenditures at a glance. If your
overall profit and loss statement shows a profit, but one department is consistently running at a loss, your company
isn't performing at peak efficiency. Your cost of goods sold should be a fairly consistent number. When it starts to
rise, you need to know that immediately so you can change your purchasing habits. Reports also are essential when
you try to get a new loan or want to develop a business partnership with another company. In both cases, you'll need
to provide different types of financial statements.

Your accounting system should help you improve the work flow in your office by creating a central location for
financial information and forms. With all staff members using the same system, you have immediate access to
outstanding purchase orders, invoices, expense reports and time sheets. This helps you see not only the current status
of your finances but what to expect in the near future. It gives you a snapshot of the money that's expected to come
in, when it's expected and the money that is likely to be going out in the same timeframe. It centralizes your
accounting functions so all transactions are kept in the same system, allowing for a more efficient work flow
throughout your office. Your employees don't have to track down the most recent version of the expense report; it's
always available through the system, for example.

Business taxes are complicated. You must keep track of your company's tax obligations as well as what you've paid
toward your employees' federal programs, such as Social Security, to accurately report that information on the W-2
forms. Keeping all your financial information in one place simplifies the tax process by allowing you to create the
reports you need on demand to give to your accountant. This includes W-2 information, sales and income
information as well as business-related expenses and depreciation on your assets. Some accounting systems allow
you to scan in receipts to attach to expense reports or purchases for convenience if audited, but all systems should be
able to track the proper information necessary to file your taxes.

 Collect and store data

 Support efficiency and effectiveness

 Provide adequate controls

 Provide information for decision making

 Support day-to-day operations

 Transaction processing

 Support Internal Decision-Making

  Trend Analyses

 Quantitative & Qualitative Data

 Non-transactional sources

 Help fulfill Stewardship Role