Access Accounts:
This program is used to give department analysis.
Spreadsheet:
A spreadsheet is very useful for making fast calculations and re calculations since the system has a built in calculator. This helps you to work out VAT much more efficiently and quickly. Spreadsheet also allows you do absolute cell reference in which you format a whole cell and drag it to a different cell but it will all was have the same format.
ARKS System [animal record keeping system:
This is like a database but is used for animals. The program stores the animals name, gender, age etc.
Desktop Publishing:
Desktop publishing is useful when making fliers, leaflets and brochures. This is helpful because the software gives templates and facilities which makes it a lot easier and faster to make advertisements.
Sales Department:
Introduction:
Laurence Smith is the managing director and is the largest shareholder of Drusilla. Drusilla is mainly marketed for families with children under the age of 11 or 12. Drusilla is also marketed at school groups i.e. Brownies, Beaver groups, Cubs. A lot of advertising is done using leaflets and brochures, approximately £120,000 is spent on advertising. A lot of PR work is done by advertising in local papers, national papers and magazines. Their web site has been used for three years to get their name across. The web site has two purposes, primary reason being to advertise Drusilla and the second reason being to support all the materials they have i.e. brochures and advertising all of which have the website address on so visitors can find out about them. This helps viewers because then the know This helps viewers because then the know what the prices are, what the opening times are, they know what facilities there are around the park and they know what they are going to see before they get here.
Web Site:
Drusilla provided the content for the website. They provided all the information needed to get the information across. Drusilla used 2 different companies for the design and putting the whole thing together. One is a technical web design company who started off but in the end decided that it didn’t have Drusillas own corporate feel. So they went back to their own corporate designers, which is a company in London called Button Communications, and they put their own touch on it and made it far more child friendly and easier to use so that it fitted in with our style.
Drusilla looked at sales using the website and when the website was constructed 18 months ago, they had long discussions about the benefits of doing it and Drusilla certainly would get a number of customers who would be interested in buying online. The difficulties would come on the site. If you bought a ticket in advance, you would want to use a fast track instead of queuing for half an hour to get in. Now Drusilla would need to provide an extra gate and extra staff which would be expensive and complicated, particularly on less busy days. So therefore sales is not used on the web site.
E-Mail:
Drusilla use e-mail on a regular basis from their point of view, the big advantage of e-mail, has been since they have had a digital camera on site, they can take photos of animals, particularly those with young babies, and then they can e-mail the photos and the press release to the local press and the national press in an hour, where previously, if used an old fashioned camera, they would have to take them to be developed and the a week later, Drusilla would have to make 15 or 16 copies and post them off to all the various papers. That means it would be one and a half to two weeks before they got the news to the papers, which wasn’t very efficient.
The types of software used in the sales department are:
- A Web Browser
- Desktop Publishing
The types of hardware used in the sales department are:
- Low spec computers
- A 56K modem
- Digital Cameras
- High Quality DeskJet Printers
Finance Department
Introduction:
Ann Human is the Finance Manager at Drusillas, which means that she ensures the level running of the Finance Department.
Tills:
Drusilla get a breakdown of the income type from the tills, i.e. in the zoo there is income from the individual entries as well as group entries. The till reading is used to reconcile the takings against the reading. All the information from the tills is put on to a spreadsheet, for example Excel, and used to combine all the information from all the different tills to give an overview of the business as a whole. Ann can then transfer that information onto the accounts system on a monthly basis by nominal journals.
Accounts Package:
The finance department use Access Accounts because it gives more detailed departmental analysis than something which is more office use such as Sage.
Payslips and Paper Records:
The finance department need to print out payslips for their staff so they know how much they have been paid. The department also needs to produce records for the end of year returns for VAT, tax etc, and also need to produce management accounts for managers and directors so they have an idea of the business performance.
Back Ups:
It would be a very large problem for the department if the computer system crashed, so it is essential that the system is backed up every night. The information is kept on a server. The department have a backup running every night, and it is important that if the backup fails they have an e-mail that tells them if the backup needs to be re-done.
The Bank:
The finance department have a computer link to their bank which they use to download data every day, this gives them detailed information on the bank accounts and then they do a thorough reconciliation at the end of the week.
The Stock and Retail Outlets:
The department need to value the stock on a monthly basis so that they are sure of the profitability of the outlets. They need to add back the value of the stock to make sure that their purchase percentage doesn’t go too high. The retail administrator is responsible of ensuring that the stock levels are correct in each of the retail outlets.
The types of software used in the sales department are:
The types of hardware used in the sales department are:
- Low spec computers
- A Web Server.
- High Quality LaserJet Printers
Operations Department
Introduction:
Sue Woodgate is the curator of Drusillas, which means that she is the animal manager and manages all the animals in the collection at the park. On a daily basis her job involves all the administration for the zoo. Making sure that the animals and health and safety are fine and also that the visitors that come to the zoo have a fun finding-out day. The department have in the region of 1000 animals at Drusillas, ranging from things like bugs, ants, cockroaches that sort of thing, going up to Flamingos, Mere Cats, Mongooses all the high profile animals, Penguins.
The Computers and Records:
Computers are very useful for all the administration [letters] and for the animal records. The department needs to keep records of all the animals. Basically, their history, breeding success, medical records and it is also a legal requirement that they need to have.
The ARKS System [animal record keeping system]:
The ARKS system comes from a company in America called Isis. There are about 400 zoos in the world which use this package and the operations department are linked up by the internet. To use the ARKS system i.e. if the department was getting an animal into the zoo, they could check it’s medical history, it’s bloodlines, it’s genetics, and if they wanted to breed from this animal, they could check that it wasn’t related to any that were already in the collection.
The ARKS System – Storing the Information:
All the information is put onto the computer into the ARKS system, but it starts off at a completely different level than that. The keepers use daily diaries. This can have anything from animal sneezes, whether an animal has diahorrea, to vaccinations and injections. Anything that has happened to the animal goes into the day diary. This information is then put onto a card system, which is a normal card system, and then the department can extract any information that they need and put it onto the computer. That means medical data, animals mating etc.
Generating Reports from the ARKS system:
At the end of each year, the department have to produce a 7 column report which gives the deaths, births and marriages of the animals. The report gives you information on what you had at the beginning of the year and what you have at the end of the year and the report goes off to the Zoo Federation, who are the umbrella organisation for the zoos in the UK. Also the zoo vets and the directors need to know how many animals there are in the collection at any one time. Also the vets need to know certain information. The department have to report on the stud books on how many animals there are in the collection and also any animals that are moving to another collection. The records have to stay with it the whole time.
Microchips:
Microchips are small chips which are used to put on animals so the department knows which animal is which. The microchips also help the department to give each animal a unique name so it can be identified. The department uses accession numbers which stay with the animal for life.
Back Ups:
Information is uploaded on the internet to Isis each month and they check out the information for any inconsistencies, making sure that all the information is as accurate as possible. This includes link rates, which means if an animal has come from another collection, that the accession number and any individual names have followed the animal. Sue usually uses floppies to back her work up.
The types of software used in the sales department are:
The types of hardware used in the sales department are:
- High spec computers
- ADSL Modem
- Microchips
- Web Server