Creating a computer system for Divine foods

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DIVINE FOODS                                                                                      SPECIFICATION

Introduction

Divine foods is an independent ethnic business specializing in the production of ready to eat meals and snacks. The business involves the production and distribution of such foods. The business is owned and managed by Mrs. Rachel Fapojuwo. She operates both as wholesaler and retailer serving customers directly either when they visit the outlets and by phone order.

She is the only person in the business, she has the responsibility of preparing the foods, delivering them, and doing administrative works, which includes taking and processing orders and also manning the market testing site. And she does all the food production in her kitchen at home; she operates as a sole proprietor at the moment pending when it becomes necessary for her business to change entity. She is the overlord of the business.

Mrs. Rachel established her business on the 10th of February 2003. She started with a stall in the woolwich market, and that operated for about two weeks, then she started receiving business proposals from interested customers who wanted to retail her products. As at today she has about 27 retail customers between Woolwich, Lewisham, Cartford and Peckham.

At the moment, Mrs. Rachel does her supplies according to order since there is no system that will efficiently hold order details, and her customers have to come to her house to pick up their orders.

However, the business is expanding enormously and she would like to employ a sub-contracting driver, who will be both deliverymen and sales man. And she intends rendering full supply services to her customers. He has a computer, which she uses for keeping the business records, but she feels that a new system would be needed to handle her proposed new system of operation.


Problems

From my interview with Mrs. Rachel, I found out that she has the following problems with her current system of operation. There is too much paper work in the current system.

Problems with Records

Presently, she reckons she has problems with accurate record keeping. Sometimes she forgets to write down orders, which results in great loss to her and inconvenience to her customers. And presently, she does one in one out system, which is, customers pay for last orders before receiving their current orders. This system/method ties down her capital, and sometimes the records pile up and she finds it very hard to sort them out. She incurs large phone bills on calling her customers every fortnight to find out if they need anything because she forgets or misplaces their order details.

Problems with filing

Mrs. Rachel operates on the manual file based system; therefore she finds it very difficult to keep her customer’s details. She finds it very difficult to make quick reference to her customer’s details. Sometimes she misplaces her customer files or she forgets where she keeps them due to the large amount of work involved in her business.

Due

to the large number of information she deals with, she finds it very difficult to update her customers/ products details, because this means starting an entirely new filing, which is very4 tedious.

Problems with invoicing/receipts

Based on her manual file-based system of operation, she does her invoicing and receipts herself (She hand writes them). This result in inaccuracy in her records, because there might be an error in the calculation, therefore an incorrect invoice would be served out to her customers.

She only gives the only copy of the invoice she writes to the customer, because it’s very difficult in writing two invoices for each customer. She said she has a big book where she writes down her own information (about the customer’s invoice), and it is very difficult to make quick reference. Because of this, she hardly knows the invoices that are paid and the ones that are still outstanding.

Problems with orders

Mrs. Rachel takes her orders by calling around the shops daily to confirm what their stock levels are. This is because she writes their orders on little pieces of papers, and misplaces them or forgets where she keeps them. This is because she does not have a good system that can hold the order information.

Insecurity of Data

There is also the problem of insecurity of her documents. Someone might just go into her premises and start checking her records and files, which is not good.


Analysis

All the problems listed above, are the problems of Divine foods, since the business is progressing rapidly, Mrs. Rachel intends to improve her system of operation. Due to my interview with her, here are some improvements that this new system will do to Divine foods.

Amount of data

Mrs. Rachel currently has about twenty customers, and she constantly produces about ten different kinds of products. Her customers are constantly ordering these products. Therefore this new system will hold all these information.

Record keeping

This new system will be able to hold all her customers details, her product details, and all the orders been made by her customers. With this new system, she can easily update her customer’s profile/details; she can easily delete or add a new customer into the system without problems.

Stock Control

With her current method of operation, se can hardly take stock of her products. Since she sometimes have some returns after orders are been collected, she finds it very difficult to take stock of all these. This new system will take control of her stock, and every return she has will be on the invoice of the customers.

Filing

With this new system, there will be no need for paper based filing; because it will store all her important information, and since there will be adequate backup of this system both on CD and her computer, there will be no fear of loss of data.

Orders

With the new system, Mrs. Rachel will be able to enter orders into the system as soon as they are been made, therefore avoiding/by cutting every means of error in order taking. She has specific products which some of her customers order, therefore there will be no need to re-enter those orders unless they change. As for the other customers, she will be able to update their orders weekly and easily, with this new system.

Invoicing, receipt and payments

With this new system, Mrs. Rachel will be able to send her customers weekly invoice at he end of every week, and a receipt will be given to the customers after each payment they make. Every fortnight, a report of all payments will be printed, and the entire amount paid will be stored on Mrs. Rachel’s personal accounts system.

Security

Since Mrs. Rachel is planning to employ some one to help her with all  the job, I will create a user and group accounts, giving certain privileges to certain users. It will be user friendly, so that Mrs. Rachel can also assign/ add new users and access levels when ever she likes without coming back to me.


Hardware and Software

Currently, Mrs. Rachel has a Compaq computer with a 5Mb memory, a 500Mb hard disk, which she bought since 1995, she has windows95, and Microsoft Office loaded on the system. But this computer system is too old, and it malfunctions due to improper maintenance.

This new system will be very large and will need a good and compatible hardware and software to be able to function properly.

Therefore I have decided to use an entirely new computer for this system. Possible solutions to the hardware and software will be discussed in the design section.


End-User Skill Level

This new system will be used by Mrs. Rachel for the moment, but she wishes to employ some one later to handle the system. But for the mean time, she will be the end-user.

She is familiar with Windows, including Basic word processing packages, and other basic programs like Excel; she has a little knowledge of Access. Therefore I will create a user manual to assist her and make things easier for her.

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End-User Requirements

Mrs. Rachel would specifically like a new system, which can:

  • Hold and identify accurate details of her customers, products and orders. Monitor and take control of stock.

  • Keep information and automatic invoicing, print weekly/monthly invoice to all her customers and keep track or evidence of invoicing and receipts.

  • Calculate the customer’s weekly bill and print receipt to them, and update their record after payment is received.

  • Mrs. Rachel wants a system that would be secure, that no unauthorized personnel can use or gain access to.

  • She wants a ...

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