- Daily booking report of the customer
- Financial report- information regarding how much profit was gained with the last year for example
- Customers report which informs management about the best customers over the previous year
The problems that Qualcotts might have at the present without a good computer system to help them are:
The main problems with the current system follow from the fact that it does not cover anything to do with landlords. However the cottage system is not easy to use, with very little ability to look up customers. Management cannot get reports or graphs which provide any useful analysis of cottage history and which cottages have been mostly used.
There isn’t any password for the folders and the files to keep them secure. They have not got any validation checks which are likely to be required on this data.
There is not any facility to show cottage is booked so that’s why sometimes cottage booked twice.
It is difficult to keep track of the number of cottage booked by members over last years.
PURPOSE OF THE SYSTEM
The Qualcotts company provides a service to members to rent out cottages in south west England for self catering.
The purpose of the new system is to extend the current computerised cottage booking system, which at present does little than assist room number of the booking order and associated invoices.
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The new system will ensure that staff can easily identify that the cottages are allocated to. This will enable staff to respond quickly to telephone enquiries. They will also be able to process incoming cottage booking more quickly- so as to provide much increased customer satisfaction with the service, as well as reducing administration costs. At the same time it is expected the system will be much better at providing management information.
SYSTEM SCOPE
The new system will replace the existing system (which only records Cottages information and prints these on reports to the management) so as to include all processing of a customer’s booking through to recording it’s its cottage number, time and date. The system should provide full management information about renting.
The new system will not allow users to see which cottages are available (empty) and who allocated to the cottage (landlord). However if possible the system should be built so that this can be done in the future.
The system will perform various validation checks on most of the documents, such as the entry of data regarding customer, cottages and bookings. The computer will detect and therefore output error messages, so that the user can then correct any errors he/she has made.
The system will use an automatic list of cottages entry from the Qualcotts books as the basis for its ‘cottages’ file.
It will send data on rents to the company’s financial system.
SYSTEM CONSTRAINTS
The system will use the existing PC’s, but an additional PC will be needed for the renting cottages.
The PC’s will have to be networked together and share a common database.
It is expected that the system can be written in ACCESS for which the company already has licences.
A budget of £25,000 is available for the system which it hoped can be implemented by August 2006.
WEAKNESSES IN THE EXISTING SYSTEM
The main problems with the current system follow from the fact that it does not cover anything to do with landlords. However the cottage system is not easy to use, with very little ability to look up customers. Management cannot get reports or graphs which provide any useful analysis of cottage history and which cottages have been mostly used.
There isn’t any password for the folders and the files to keep them secure. They have not got any validation checks which are likely to be required on this data.
There is not any facility to show cottage is booked so that’s why sometimes cottage booked twice.
The current system of entering booking and customer, which uses spreadsheet model, is extremely time-consuming.
Mistakes are sometime made in manually transcribing the letting figures for each title on to the Qualcotts spreadsheet.
The account manager who does the booking calculation is not always kept informed of which new cottage has booked and what advance has been paid.
It is difficult to keep track of the number of cottage booked by members over last years
USER REQUIREMENTS
INPUT
- Allow entry of member and cottage details
Appropriate validation to control the entry of data into above
- Allow quick entry of bookings from forms
- Allow quick entry of bookings over the telephone
- Allow quick identification of customers or landlords from surnames, first names – from first few letters only. Ideally allow postcode look-ups of addresses.
- Allow look up of available cottage
- Record money received from customers in finance
- Have built-in controls to ensure accuracy and completeness of data input
OUTPUT
- Create invoices for cottage booking which are available.
- Provide reports on best customers and landlords – over varying periods of time.
- Allow the creation of future reports on booking which are not yet specified
- Provide weekly, monthly and quarterly letting lists
- Print out of reports which provide information to Qualcotts management about the booking that they have taken.
PROCESSING
- Automatically price booking – including discounts available
The system should be developed to use the standard colours and logos throughout.
Most users of the system should be able to use the system without extra software training (for example in ACCESS) although they will obviously need training to use the system itself.
The user was interested in providing a capability for customers to order directly onto a Qualcotts web site on the Internet. Although this is not part of the scope of the proposed project, in the future it is expected that this will be required so the project should try to ensure that the project work can be used as the basis for this future capability.
Possible solution
Two alternative proposals have been considered. These are described below
- Improvement to existing spreadsheet system
The existing spreadsheet could be automated to a certain extent with macros. The communications procedures between departments and the routine of exactly when the facts about new landlords/customers contracts are signed, and when payment is received from customers, can be improved.
This proposal, however, will not really satisfy the objectives of providing a system which can be operated by someone without an in-depth knowledge of spreadsheets. The spreadsheet is already large and unwieldy and has to be modified every time a new landlord/ customer is signed up, price or cottage type for booking. There is no practical way of automating these functions.
- Develop a solution using Microsoft Access
A trade-made solution could be written using MS Access which would provide a standalone solution to the problem. Improvements need to be made to the communications procedures between departments to ensure that all data is captured correctly.
This solution will potentially satisfy all the objectives within the allotted budget. No new software or hardware will need t5o be purchased. A new system of ensuring that all relevant information is entered into the Qualcotts system will also need place. This proposal has the added benefit that queries from staff in either the finance department or letting cottages department about booking or payments may be answered by reference to the database.
Recommendation
The Access database solution is recommended as it is only system that will satisfy the objectives within the given budget and time span. It should provide a very satisfactory solution on the current problems. In particular:
- It will be possible to develop a menu –driven system which can be operated without any technical knowledge of database;
- It will help to solve the problem of entering correct cottages price into the Qualcotts system because this will be done in the letting cottages department;
- It will help to solve the problem of entering correct landlord (who allocated to the cottage) into the Qualcotts system
- Validation and verification procedures will be implemented which will help to ensure the accuracy of data input.
Cost, benefits and risks
Qualcotts Company already has the hardware and software required to implement the proposed new system. The costs therefore will be the analyst’s and programmer’s time for development, and the cost of transferring data to the new system and the extra cost of parallel running. This is estimated as follows:
System analyst: 10 hours at £40.00 per hour. £400
Programmer: 50 hours at £30.00 per hour £1500
Data entry: 4 hours at £18.00 per hour £72
Contingencies £200
Total £2172
The benefit will include the time saved in performing royalty calculations and the greater accuracy achieved. The time spent on updating the spreadsheet will no longer be required. The total time- saving is expected to be in the region of 10-12 hours per month by various senior members of staff. The system therefore pay for itself within the first 6 months and thereafter will achieve a substantial cost saving.
No new system is completely risk-free as things can always go wrong. For this application the risks are low as Access is a well-tried and tested software package and no new hardware has to be purchased. The greatest risk in this system is that the clerical procedures will not be correctly followed, leading to situation where, for example, landlords/customers are not credited with the correct amount. Careful auditing procedures will need to be put in place to avoid this.
Process Structure Diagram
Context Diagram
