Company called Bookshop Essay

1. Introduction 1. 1 Background The family that I defend chosen to do my project on is a junior-grade(a) book distribution family c all in alled Bookshop. Bookshop is a footling order based in S poph London and was set up in early 2002. They have a small hands of 4 people. apiece(prenominal)(prenominal) person thitherfore has a large and important role to the company. from each one worker is always hard pushed to meet deadlines for schools and social centres demanding books. Beca work that ar a small company they cannot afford to have large computer module to look after al their accounts.They argon limited to the eon that they can pass on on different tasks. Each day they deal with a round i 1000 worth of exhibitions, but this might transfer to as much as i 4500 or as little as i 500. The director of the company has put in a large lump sum as a loan to setoff off the company, which she hopes pass on trunk into profits, which she will later recoup. 1. 2 education of the problem I have conducted an interview with the director of the company and we encountered the chase problems. Beca purpose the bookshop is new, there are many things that could go wrong and ca spendd bankruptcy. in that location is the fact that the company has no real image and cannot conduct assert on customers. on that pointfore they motivation to profit maximise. They need all cater working to their full potential. They need no wastes of time with things that can be done mechanically. Also with the small amount of money avail able to them they had o key do with old computers, which ran old computer weapons platforms that are do based. The problem that ABC Books as a company has is that it is limited to the workforce that it ca spend on different tasks. therefore time is a major part of what is wrong.If there were a way that was quicker than the on-line(prenominal) way to do it then the time taken by each person would be greatly reduced and there may be a chance that each person would have more time to do new(prenominal) jobs. For example two people handle all the accounts. If there were an easier way then they might only need 1 person and therefore there would be an extra person left wing over to do other work. Because of a shortage of time that they spend on the accounts, orders dont get delivered and because it is a small business, it call for all the orders it can get and any a late order and schools will look to other suppliers.This was picked up on by tap Horsefield (director) when a meeting was held to discuss the problems with the transcription. Mrs. Horsefield feels that with the introduction of a computer accounts system, a system that can process customer orders faster and more accurately, a reduction in the amount of paper generated by the system and feels that a centralised system could improve communication between staff, then the hale company will run more smoothly and then they would make more money and she would star t going in to profit.As the company is new they have not got enough capital to go out and but fleets of vans and cars, they have to rely on people own cars and fascinate of that of a delivery company which all costs money. Because of this they need to carry on money on expensive large especially designed schedules by large specialist companys that produce such programs. 2. investigating 2. 1 The period system The current system that the company use is a spreadsheet package that was caused 17 years ago and is therefore preferably basic and not easy use for all the staff that are used to more modern forms of spreadsheets.At the moment as each school places an order, it has to go through a processing system that takes a long time to fill out. Input Processing Output given name Surname Position School Address Home Phone restless Books ordered Total Price Paid Payment method This is the roadway that the current data takes. 2. 2 Constraints of the Current system The format of the current accounting system is in DOS and therefore has no graphical drug user interface that is useable to a user for formats deal EXCEL. The software and hardware are old and need to be replaced.That main one is that it is not like the new accounts systems such as EXCEL and SAGE Line 100. There are many problems encountered when external people wish to view the accounts i. e. Auditors. some other problem is that when outside people wish to review the accounts, they are completely unfamiliar with the system and are not able to use it correctly. This is in the first place because of the layout and the basic look of the interface. There is one major problem with the veridical system and that is that it does not automatically perform calculations. Therefore all calculations need to be done utilize a calculator.This is time consuming. If there were a way that the users could just put in numbers and the computer could automatically calculate the totals and the answers the user wou ld have more time to do other things. Due to the lack of complexity of the system, errors are often made. 3. Requirements of the new system 3. 1 General objectives The general objectives that I hope to be able to achieve are To create an up-to-date system that can be easily used by the staff and new staff To be based on a modern GUI that all users will understand.To make it self explanatory so that new users will be able to pick up the methods quickly. It will need o be able to hold the companys accounts There will be no need for passwords to any of the data, as no strict own(prenominal) data is held on the computer 3. 2 Specific objectives quantitative guest accounts should be found in less then 20 seconds The user should be able to locate a page by using in the click of a button. All users should be able to use the system to do accounts. Customer Details should be able to be printed off at the click of a button.There should be buttons to do all reasonable jobs (print/open/add) All pages should have links bandaging to all the other pages, with the click of a macro and should be intelligibly labelled. 4. The current systems 4. 1 Hardware The hardware that is ready(prenominal) to the users is a small LAN of 4 computers and a server. All the computers have a barcode electronic scanner for scanning in book barcode numbers and ISBNs. The computers that I have purchasable for me to use are a set of 5 networked PCs at my house of which one has a barcode scanner. At college there is a large number of networked PCs for pupils use.Intel Pentium 4 mainframe Processor Speed 2. 0 GHz All 5 of the PCs that I have available to me at my house are all the same. (see above) 4. 2 software system The software that the user has available is Microsoft Windows 95 professional edition with delegacy 95 and all relevant software for the barcode scanners and for the tele-book ordering. What I have available to use is Microsoft XP professional with Office 2000 which has excel, which Im using to create the new spreadsheet program 4. 3 Users IT skills and knowledge I feel that the users ICT knowledge and skills are limited to what they can do.They are uninitiated in computer use and therefore they have not developed, because of this there will need to be a basic and informative and self-explanatory interface. I come back that the interface will need to be dauntless and relevant to the tasks. The user manual will have basic information in using the system as well as a trouble shooting section. 1. Consideration of a possible solution There are many different packages that I could use to create an accounts program there is Sage Line100, which is widely used in large company businesses. There is also Microsoft own surpass, which is widely used, in smaller businesses.I am going to use excel to create the program because it is the or so commonly available and is therefore the best choice to use. I think that it is also the easiest to use out of the two beca use many people use the program already and have a basic knowledge of the program already and how it works. It is also a lot clearer to see than the basic fine art of Line100. there is also the case that Excel is cheaper to buy than a write of Sage Line100. at i 250, Line100 is rather too expensive for a small company. I feel that with the cheaper, only i 89. 99 Excel they will have a better deal on their hands.