ACC 315 is SNHU’s Accounting Information Systems course. It centers on how accounting information systems capture and control business events: business processes and the revenue and expenditure cycles, documentation with flowcharts and data flow diagrams, internal control and the COSO framework, relational databases and the REA model, enterprise systems, cybersecurity and data analytics. Every module below opens a full sample paper or takes a free request for one; searches like "acc 315 module 3", "ACC315 sample paper" and "ACC 315 milestone example" land on this page.
What ACC 315 is really about
ACC 315 is SNHU's accounting information systems course, and it shifts the student's attention from journal entries to the system that produces them. Strong work in the course describes a business process step by step, points to exactly where errors or fraud could enter, names the control that would stop them and explains how data should be structured so that reports can be trusted. A sample that says a company needs better controls earns little; one that names the missing reconciliation and who should perform it earns the points.
The samples on this shelf share one composite business, a family-owned propane and heating oil distributor in central Vermont with about 5,400 accounts, nine delivery trucks and a five-person office that still keys paper delivery tickets into an accounting package separate from its routing software. That gap between field and office gives every module something real to document, control, redesign or analyze. The company, its staff and its figures are illustrative.
What ACC 315’s modules ask for
Across eight modules, ACC 315 typically asks for a discussion on the role of accounting information systems, a business process documentation assignment, an internal control analysis, a first project evaluating a company's current system, a database design assignment, a discussion on cybersecurity, a second project recommending a system and an analytics paper. Most assignments combine a short written analysis with a table, diagram description or data model.
Where students lose points in ACC 315
The most common ACC 315 deduction is a control recommendation with no risk attached: the paper suggests segregation of duties or a password policy without saying which error or theft it prevents. The second is documentation that skips steps or mixes physical and logical flows. Graders also mark down database designs without keys or relationships and system recommendations that ignore cost, controls or implementation risk. Tying every control, table and requirement to a specific step in the business process fixes most of these.
The ACC 315 drawers
ACC 315 Module 1 Discussion example
An opening post that follows one paper delivery ticket at a composite Vermont propane distributor from a driver's clipboard to the income statement, counting four times the same data is written or keyed, and uses the trip to explain what an accounting information system does: capture, process, store, control and report, with Romney and colleagues, Hall and Chapman and Kihn. Full sample paper, read it free.
ACC 315 Module 2 Business Process Documentation Assignment example
A documentation assignment that writes up the revenue cycle of a composite Vermont propane distributor in three forms: a numbered process narrative from automatic delivery scheduling to cash receipt, a document flowchart described symbol by symbol across the driver, billing and cash columns, and a level-zero data flow diagram, then flags four points where errors could enter, with Romney and colleagues, Hall and Doyle and colleagues. Full sample paper, read it free.
ACC 315 Module 3 Internal Control Assignment example
An internal control assignment that applies the five COSO components to a composite Vermont propane distributor's expenditure and inventory cycle: wholesale loads bought at a terminal, driver fuel cards, bulk plant inventory and the 2.6 percent of gallons nobody can account for, with a control matrix that pairs each risk with a preventive or detective control and its cost, with COSO, Doyle and colleagues, Ashbaugh-Skaife and colleagues and Romney and colleagues. Full sample paper, read it free.
ACC 315 Module 4 Project One example
Project One evaluates the accounting information system of a composite Vermont propane distributor: the current applications and how data moves between them, five problems with their measured costs, from a twelve-day close to budget billing errors, a prioritized list of functional, control and reporting requirements for any new system, and the evidence on integration, with Chapman and Kihn, Grabski and colleagues, Kanellou and Spathis and Romney and colleagues. Full sample paper, read it free.
ACC 315 Module 5 Database Design Assignment example
A database design assignment that models a composite Vermont propane distributor's sales and collections with the REA approach: resources, events and agents, the duality between deliveries and cash receipts, cardinalities, the relational tables with primary and foreign keys that implement the model, and three queries the old system could not answer, with McCarthy, Dunn and McCarthy and Romney and colleagues. Full sample paper, read it free.
ACC 315 Module 6 Discussion example
A discussion post built on a near miss at a composite Vermont propane dealer, an email that looked like it came from the wholesale terminal asking the controller to send next week's $118,000 payment to a new bank account, used to explain business email compromise, the IT general and application controls that would stop it, the NIST Cybersecurity Framework functions and how a small firm should decide what to spend, with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gordon and Loeb and Romney and colleagues. Full sample paper, read it free.
ACC 315 Module 7 Project Two example
Project Two recommends a system for a composite Vermont propane dealer: three options, connecting the current packages, an industry-specific fuel dealer system and a general mid-market enterprise system, scored against the requirements from Project One, a five-year cost comparison, the controls the chosen system must have switched on, a phased conversion plan timed around the heating season and the risks that sink small-business implementations, with Grabski and colleagues, Spathis and Constantinides, Kanellou and Spathis and Chapman and Kihn. Full sample paper, read it free.
ACC 315 Module 8 Data Analytics Short Paper example
A closing short paper on how a composite Vermont propane dealer could use the data its new system collects: descriptive, diagnostic, predictive and prescriptive analytics applied to gallons that go missing, a daily truck-level test that flags meter gaps above a threshold, degree-day forecasts of each tank's needs, an example of what one month's flags showed and the limits of analytics in a small office, with Vasarhelyi and colleagues, Appelbaum and colleagues and Romney and colleagues. Full sample paper, read it free.
Your classroom shows something else?
Southern New Hampshire University revises courses; module counts and deliverables shift between terms. Send what your classroom shows and the desk matches it exactly.
Using a ACC 315 sample the right way
Read an ACC 315 sample by following one transaction through it: find where the event is captured, where it is checked, where it is stored and where it is reported, and see whether each step has a control. Use the samples to learn how a process narrative, control matrix or data model is laid out, then build yours from the company in your own case. For ACC 315, send the instructions, the case and the rubric, and the first custom sample comes back free within 24-48h.
ACC 315 questions, answered
Is ACC 315 a technical computer course?
Not mainly. It covers how accounting systems are designed and controlled, using flowcharts, data models and control frameworks. Some sections use Excel or Access, but the focus is on processes and controls.
What frameworks come up most in ACC 315?
The COSO internal control framework, the revenue and expenditure cycles, the REA data model and, in many sections, cybersecurity frameworks such as NIST.
Do ACC 315 assignments need diagrams?
Many do, such as flowcharts, data flow diagrams or entity relationship diagrams. Where a diagram is required, a written description of each step and symbol often accompanies it.