Lets just qualify what accessibility means in this case. Its the understanding of who is allowed to do what on the application, and from where. Under technical terms, "who" and "what" are dealt with later under the section of authentication and authorisation, but the key word here is "where". A normal low-priced book-keeping application would normally only be accessed from one computer. Network versions may be available but normally incur a charge, and most of them are only available to other computers on the local network (and of the same computer type).
But as our application is web-based, the only restriction is whether someone has access to the internet or not. No special software is needed (assuming you don't go down the route of browser specific controls like ActiveX) which means that any computer type can access the application just by being able to access the internet. I am writing this blog on a Mac but, statistically speaking, you will probably be reading it on a Windows PC. It doesn't matter.
Now imagine the business owner above dumping his paperwork on Mrs. Accountants desk. Mr Accountant hasn't got time to input the invoices so he delegates that task to Miss Book-Keeper, who accesses SmallAccounts on her cheap PC and ploughs through the paperwork for the rest of the day. Thats just one scenario but its one i have seen in action. Ok so any desktop application on Miss Book-Keeper's PC would have done the same, but, suppose Mr Owner wanted to "enter" the deposits he has received and paid into the bank, just to save a bit of expensive time from his accountant. Could Miss Book-Keeper's application allow that? Would she allow it? It would likely be out-of-hours when Mr Owner could find the time to do it so he would probably have to do it on his home PC.
Get the picture?
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