Title Page A Customizable Small Business Manager

i

Title Page

A Customizable Small Business Manager

by

Okeke, Chidiebere Ogonna, 2009/163632

Being a B.Sc. project report submitted in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the award of a Bachelor of Science degree in

Combined Computer Science and Statistics of the University of

Nigeria.

Supervisor: Dr. M.C. Okoronkwo

Department of Computer Science

University of Nigeria, Nsukka

August, 2012

ii

Certification Page

A Customizable Small Business Manager

I hereby declare that the work reported on herein was wholly done by

me and no part of it was done on my behalf by, or stolen by me from, a

third party. Should this declaration be found to be false, I shall accept

the appropriate penalty from the University.

……………………………………………………………………………

Okeke, Chidiebere Ogonna, 2009/163632

…………………………………………………………………………….

Dr. M.C. Okoronkwo

Supervisor

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Dedication

This Project Work is dedicated to the Almighty God for His grace upon my life

throughout the period this work is being done. Also I dedicate it to my parents Mr.

& Mrs. Vincent N. Okeke , my siblings Engr. Chukwunonso. N. Okeke, Mrs

Uchenna C. Okeke Amadi and Miss Chinemelum C. Okeke for their total supports

to me.

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Acknowledgment

Success in life is never attained single handedly. It is on this note that I express my

heartfelt gratitude to God for the strength and wisdom; and to various people who

have assisted me in various ways to accomplish this project.

My sincere appreciation goes to the Department of Computer Science staff, more

especially so to my supervisor, Dr M.C. Okoronkwo, without whose help this work

would not be as it appears. Also to my parents, Mr. & Mrs. Vincent Okeke and my

siblings: Uchenna, Chukwunonso and Chinemelum for their encouragements and

prayers.

Last but not least, I acknowledge all my friends and course-mates for having made

my academic and social life comfortable at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

May God bless you all abundantly.

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page i

Certification Page ii

Dedication iii

Acknowledgement iv

Table of Contents v

Abstract vii

Chapter One: Introduction

1.1 Introduction 1

1.2 Statement of Problem 2

1.3 Objectives 2

1.4 Significance of the Study 3

1.5 Literature Review 3

Chapter Two: Theoretical Background of the Study

2.1 Theoretical Background 7

2.2 The definition based on qualitative data 7

2.3 Business Management 8

2.4 Small Business 8

2.5 Types of Small Business 25

2.6 Small Business Manager 26

Chapter Three: System Analysis and Design

3.1 Structured Systems Analysis and Design Methodology 12

3.2 System Analysis 14

3.2.1 Problems of Existing System 14

3.2.2 Requirements Analysis 15

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3.2.2.1 User Requirements 15

3.2.2.2 Functional Requirements 16

3.2.2.3 System Requirements 17

3.3 System Design 18

3.4 System Modeling 19

3.5 Database Design 21

3.6 Architectural Design 29

3.7 Procedural Design 27

3.8 System Flow Chart 33

Chapter Four: System Implementation

4.1 System Implementation 37

4.2 PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) 37

4.3 MySQL 38

4.4 HTML 39

4.5 The Database 39

4.6 Graphical User Interface 39

4.6.1 Screen Formats 40

4.6.2 Reports 42

4.6.3 Human Computer Interface 43

4.6.4 View Sales Screen 44

4.6.5view Stock Screen 45

Chapter Five: Summary and Conclusion 46

References

Appendices

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Abstract

Based on the current challenges that small business face which include

competition, insecurity, debt collection, lack of working capital and power

interruptions, this system is developed to solve most of these problems. The system

is designed for management of business activities such as sales, purchasing, daily

and weekly profit tracking, inventory, accounts payable and reports by managers,

accountants, and will run on local host using wamp5 as the server and the browser

as the host. The system is designed to adapt to the kind of business the user wishes

to undertake. It is built using PHP(Hypertext preprocessor), MYSQL (My

Structured Query Language) as the application database, HTML (Hypertext

Markup Language and wamp5 as the server.

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Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 Introduction

Business management is the process of the planning, co-ordination and

controlling (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). To survive in the long run, a

business must be profitable and liquid. To do so, it must create sufficient

value for its customers so that its revenues exceed its total costs. The overall

task of business management is to address successfully the problems that

confront a business in its role as a value-creating organization. A small

business manager is an affordable, easy-to-use financial and business

management solution designed specifically to help small businesses work

smarter and faster, easily access information to make informed decisions,

and effectively integrate with business applications that are mostly used

(http:wwwavtechmed.com/gp.htm). It is an ideal for companies ready to

move beyond a basic accounting solution. It helps one get up and running

quickly, scales as his business grows and offers reliable multi-user access.

Therefore, a customizable small business manager is an application

developed to enable small businesses to leverage their existing sales and

contact information in more useful ways, achieve more effective customer

tracking, analysis and communication by making use of the data they

already have (http:wwwavtechmed.com/gp.htm).. However some small

businesses may need to expand the capabilities of the small business

manager to fit a specific business task. Small business manager includes

financial, banking, sales, purchasing, administration and payroll capabilities

as well as quick and easy reporting.

Therefore, this work presents, in a step-by-step process, ways to customize

the small business manager and the tools and resources that make tasks of

business management easier to accomplish.

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1.2 Statement of Problem

Companies are overwhelmed with the tasks of manually securing and

providing reliable access for up to five concurrent users, accounting controls

and real audit tracking and several database options like Ms Access, Oracle,

etc. Other problems include time management, state of economy, high

cost of insurance, taxes, health and safely, and competitions. This

situation immediately implies inefficiency on the part of the business

venture. With this in mind, this project is designed to easily automate all

business processes of a small business and further adapt the system to any

small business.

1.3 Objectives of the Study

The primary objective of this project is to develop a computer-aided

business manager that will facilitate speedy transaction. Tasks such as

manually keeping stock and inventory control records, issuing of receipt,

viewing sales reports have been taken care of automatically by the manager

software.

It is therefore necessary, ever more than before to develop a computerized

business manager that will aid in achieving the following objectives:

a. To create efficient database of the entire business process

including staff.

b. To track orders from customers.

c. To implement order processing by the customers/Suppliers.

d. To administer staff, recruitment, payment and deployment

control.

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e. To generate reports that help maximize profitability by utilizing

all profit and reporting tools available.

f. Prioritize and organize tasks schedule effectively, ensuring

flexibility to meet the day to day demands of the business.

g. Provide employees with a reliable system to access and process

business activities without giving up control of business data.

h. To monitor sales and manage expenses.

1.4 Significance of the Study

Small Business Manager offers a number of powerful, advanced features

designed for small, growing businesses such as determining business

growth by monitoring sales, performing accounting operations, creating

daily financial and other reports, managing cash flows. With small business

manager, one can designate the areas that employees can have access to.

Small Business Manager helps in monitoring amounts due from customers

and amounts owed to suppliers with viewlist receivables and payables

management features.

1.5 Literature Review

According to Ponthieu et al (1996), “ small businesses constitute 97% of all

businesses in the united states and employ more than 58% of the labour

force” (p. 35) . The small business sector is growing at a very impressive

rate, with small businesses making up more than 50% of the sales and

products in the private sector (U.S. SBA, 1994). The importance of small

business to the economy is quite evident.

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Why are some firms successful while other firms appearing to follow the

same paths are not successful? It has been said that specific success

strategies used in one business may not work for another; as all businesses,

like people, are different (Hand et al 1987). There are so many variables to

sift through. It would appear that the majority of studies in this area have

found that most businesses that demonstrated success were found to have

characteristics or to use tools in three separate areas. These are

characteristics of the owners/entrepreneurs, demographic characteristics of

the business, or strategic tools used by the business.

A study by Beckman et al (1996) found that business experience was a

factor in the success of small firms. Another study by Costa indicated that

strategic planning contributes to long-running success for businesses(Costa,

1994). Other factors for success include quality, customer focus, innovative

marketing practices, flexibility and employee empowerment (Zetlin, 1994).

Filley et al (2004) defined several tools for small business success. These

included good management techniques, such as appropriate operating

strategies, leadership and time management. Other tools were good

financial management and pricing strategies, motivational strategies for

employees, and ensuring that only those employees with ability are hired.

Studies that have looked at appropriate management and financial planning

and skill development of managers are conducted by Ibrahim et al (2001),

Montagon et al (1999), Hofer et al (1997), Lumpkin et al (1998), and

Susbauer et al (1998). These studies also looked at environment factors and

entrepreneurial characteristics as factors in business success.

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Ibrahim et al (2001) stated that “ Success in any small business is defined in

terms of rate of return on sales, and age or longetivity of the firm” (p. 42).

Cuba et al (1998) and Khan et al (1996) also found that sales, profit, and

longetivity were important to the success of any small business.

Hofer and Sandberg (1997) noted that high quality services or production

was the key to the success of small businesses and was directly related to

effective management and planning, which relied upon effective

management decisions.

In America, Store management as just defined dates from the latter part of

the 19th century. A notable impetus to its evolution was provided by the

American engineer Frederick Taylor, who developed techniques for

analyzing the operations involved in sales and for setting standards for a

day’s work. The techniques originally devised by Taylor were adapted by

industrialists to other phases of business, including the employment of

qualified workers, and wage incentive programs either to replace or to

supplement the piecework system that had previously prevailed.

Store management experts who succeeded Taylor have applied his

techniques to a wider range of business problems. Among the leading

successors are the Austrian-American management consultant and educator

Peter Drucker and the American economist, writer and diplomat John

Kenneth Galbraith.

Since the mid-seventies, we see that scholars make the distinction between

small and large firms in terms of needs, the level of complexity and scope

of strategic planning. Bracker et al (1986), Rue et al (1998), Perry (2001)

and WIJEWARDENA et al (2004) state that to make all definitions of

strategic planning that have the uniqueness of small businesses in mind and

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allow the fact that small businesses cannot rely on the management and

material resources in a manner similar to that of large organizations.

Saffu et al (2005) classified three planning levels: low, moderate and high.

They found a relationship between increased sales and the low level of

planning. No correlation was found between strategic planning and

increased market share or profitability.

Perry (2001) found a significant difference in the degree to which planning

is conducted in small businesses that do not apply in bankruptcy against

those that did. WIJEWARDENA et al. (2004) defines three levels of

planning: no written planning, basic planning and detailed planning. The

results indicate that the level of planning is in direct proportion to the level

of increase of sales.

An important part of differentiation in the rate of increase in sales was

found by Rue et al (1998) in small businesses that incorporate planning for

writing (basic or sophisticated), unlike other companies.

Miller et al (1994) carried out a survey of twenty-six experimental studies

to identify a significant positive relationship between strategic planning and

performance of small businesses. Robinson (1982) found a significantly

high level of profitability and an increase in sales and profitability of sales

and the number of full-time employees in a group of small businesses

operating outside consultants to strategic planning.

Compared with other companies, Bracker et al (1986) found a significant

increase in income and pay by the employer in companies that prepared

strategic plans (the highest of four levels designated in the strategic

planning).

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Chapter 2: Theoretical Background

2.1 Theoretical Background

Federal, State and Local Government in Australia have made a commitment

to create a conducive environment for business growth based on the

understanding that businesses are the creators of wealth and sustainable

employment. Consequently, a considerable range of government funded

business support programmes has been implemented primarily to assist

growth by facilitating business strategic planning, encouraging the

adoption of new technologies and seeking new market opportunities.

In 2000 a local government Economic Development Unit partnered with a

university to initiate research into the design, development and delivery of a

small business support programme. The objective was to address a

recognized market failure and cultural gap between small businesses and

government agency provision of support, through the development of a

programme that would be more readily perceived by owner-managers as

having utility to their businesses.

2.2 The Definition based on Qualitative data

The management in the small business context was sometimes viewed as the

same with management in the small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)

context. This conclusion is however argued by part of the scholars. Burrows

et al (1989) argued that the emphasis to define only from quantitative basis

is not sufficient to explain the uniqueness of small businesses when a range

of other qualitative criteria such as the type of economic activities, types of

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employed technology or the characteristics of decision making process are

being neglected.

The Bolton Committee (1971) proposed the qualitative definition of small

businesses and described three essential characteristics as :

1. The business is owner-managed in a personalized way, and not

through a formal management structure.

2. The business has a relatively small share of its market.

3. The business is independent, in the sense that it does not form part

of a large enterprise and that the owner managers should be free

from outside control in making their principal decisions.

2.3 Business Management

Business management is the process of the planning, co-ordination and

control of a business. To survive in the long run, a business must be

profitable and liquid. To do so, it must create sufficient value for its

customers so that its revenues exceed its total costs. The overall task of a

business management is to address successfully the problems that

confront a business in its role as a value- creating organization.

2.4 Small Business

This is a business that is privately owned and operated, with a small

number of employees and relatively low volume of sales. Small businesses

are normally privately owned corporations, partnerships or sole

proprietorships. It can also be classified according to other methods such as

sales, assets, or net profits.

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Advantages of Small Business

a) A small business can be started at a very low cost and on a part-time

basis.

b) Small businesses is also well suited to internet marketing because it

can easily serve specialized niches, something that would have been

more difficult prior to the internet revolution which began in the late

1990s.

c) Small businesses can easily adapt to change and not tied to any

bureaucratic inertia.

d) It is easier to respond to the marketplace quickly.

e) Small business managers tend to intimate with their customers and

clients which results in greater accountability and maturity.

f) Small business is an independent business.

2.5 Types of Small Business

a. Sole Proprietorship

Sole proprietorship is a type of business model in which there is just

one owner who has all the rights to take decisions. All debts of the

business are his personal debts and whenever required, they must be

paid from his personal possessions. As there is no partnership in the

business, the sole proprietor enjoys unlimited freedom within the

precincts of his workplace. Sole proprietorships are easy to start up

with relatively fewer regulations and full control over the business. If

the business is doing good, the owner takes all the profits. It is

different from a corporation, as instead of paying corporate taxes, the

sole proprietor pays self employment taxes on the profits made,

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making accounting much simpler. He does not have to be concerned

about issues like doubles taxation, as a corporate entity would. Sole

proprietorship is the easiest way to form a business and compared to

other business structures, it is subject to the fewest regulations.

b. Partnership

Partnership is a business entity in which some people come together

to start a business and share the profits or losses of it collectively.

These people are called partners and they own the business

together. Partnerships are generally preferred over corporations

because of the levied taxes. However, in a partnership the members

may be exposed to greater personal liability as compared to the

shareholders of the corporation, depending on its structure and

jurisdiction in which it operates. Unlike sole proprietorship, the right

of making decisions is distributed amongst the partners, in this type

of small business. Generally, an agreement prepared by a lawyer is

signed by all the members who want to form a partnership. This

agreement clearly states the terms and conditions of the

partnership, the sharing of profits or losses and the distribution of

common assets in case the partnership ends. Every time a new

member joins the partnership, it is necessary to sign the agreement

paper again.

c. Close Corporation

A close corporation is a form of business ownership which combines

the aspects of sole proprietorship and partnership. This model of

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business is particularly helpful and suitable for small to medium-sized

enterprises. A close corporation is almost like a company but less

expensive and easier to run. It is also known as CC and can be easily

registered through a lawyer or an accountant. Unlike a company, a

close corporation does not have directors, shareholders or a

chairperson of the board. Suppliers of a close corporation often ask

for a signed security from a trusted third party, to ensure the

payment of debts in case the CC fails to do so.

d. Limited Liability Partnership (LLP)

A limited liability partnership is almost similar to a general

partnership. However, in this type of business entity, none of the

partners are liable for the actions of others. This helps a member to

stay clear from another partner’s misconduct or negligence. In case

any one of the partners dies, the limited liability partnership

automatically ceases.

The formation of a small business and the blueprint of its installation

is solely decided by factors, like, the number of members and the

initial investment. In case one wants to start a small business, one

should get a brief idea of the laws governing them.

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2.6 Small Business Manager

Small Business Manager is an affordable, easy to use financial and business

management solution designed specifically to help small businesses work

smarter and faster, easily access information to make informed decisions,

and effectively integrate with business applications. It involves personnel,

financial, sales, purchasing and payroll capabilities as well as quick and easy

reporting. This forms the essential features/modules of the system being

developed here.

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Chapter Three:

System Analysis and Design

We find it useful to distinguish between the terms method and methodology.

A method is a disciplined process for generating a set of models that

describe various aspects of a software system under development, using

some well-defined notation. Therefore, a methodology is a collection of

methods applied across the software development life cycle and unified by

some general philosophical approach. There are a number of methodologies

available among which are Object-Oriented Analysis and Design

Methodology(OOADM), Prototyping Methodology and Structured Systems

Analysis, Design Methodology(SSADM), etc. For this project we used the

SSADM.

3.1 Structured Systems Analysis and Design Methodology

SSADM (Structured System Analysis and Design Methodology) is a

methodology used in the analysis and design stages of systems

development. SSADM adopts a prescriptive approach to information

systems development in that it specifies in advance the modules, stages and

tasks which have to be carried out, the deliverables to be produced and

furthermore the techniques used to produce the deliverables. It adopts the

Waterfall model of systems development, where each phase has to be

completed and signed off before subsequent phases can begin. SSADM is

better known as Data Flow Diagrams. It is a simple and highly effective

systems analysis and design (decomposition) methodology. It uses just four

symbols, and it is excellent for communicating with non-technical users. A

proposed or existing system can be analyzed and decomposed to the level

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required (the deeper levels being more technical), which assists in exposing

efficiency, modularity and duplication issues. Its components are Structures,

Techniques and Documentation. SSADM is one example of structured

methodologies.

SSADM revolves around the use of three techniques namely:

Logical Data Modeling: identifies, models and documents the data

requirements of a business information system.

Data Flow Modeling: identifies, models and documents how data flow

around a business information system.

Entity/Event Modeling: identifies, models and documents the business

events which affect each entity and the sequence in which these events

occur.

SSADM’s objectives are to:

Improve project management and control

Make more effective use of experienced and inexperienced development

staff

Develop better quality systems

Make projects resilient to the loss of staff

Enable projects to be supported by computer-based tools such as

computer-aided software engineering systems

Establish a framework for good communications between participants in a

project.

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How is SSADM Structured?

Fig. 1: The Structure of SSADM.

3.2 System Analysis

The existing system was found to be completely manual, i.e.

personal(customer/supplier) information is captured in a record register

at the reception. A form is used to keep the record of sales and purchases

made in daily, weekly or monthly basis. Also the manual system makes it

difficult for the users to keep reports of all the activities going on in the

business.

3.2.1 Problems of Existing System

Considering the previous section, there are many problems associated with

the existing manual system, they include the following:

1. It is evident that there is a lot of duplication in recording of the

customers. For example there is recording at reception, when a sale is

made and all these are kept in different registers.

2. There is a problem of storage of these registers and forms which are

produced at different levels.

Feasibility Study Requirements

Specification Requirements

Analysis

Physical Design

Logical System

Specification

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3. Information retrieval from these sources is not easy.

4. Some forms or registers get lost or misplaced. This is a problem in

decision making as there is inadequate information.

5. Customers have to wait for a long time as employees are looking for

registers to confirm sales before delivery of goods and services.

3.2.2 Requirements Analysis

3.2.2.1 User Requirements

It is very important to get the users of the system fully involved such

that the problem of change management does not arise. The stake

holders, who will use the system therefore were approached during

the study and were asked what they expected of the proposed system

and the following were the finding:

1. A system that is easy to learn and use

2. A system that improves on the efficiency of information storage

and retrieval

3. A system that is fast in producing results which will be ready at

the point of sales therefore reducing on waiting time and

increasing on time to attend to the customers.

4. A system that has an element of error validation, i.e. one that

prompts the user on entering unusual command or data format

inconsistent with the database.

5. A system that provides attractive interfaces with easy

navigation throughout the system.

6. A system that is faster, flexible and convenient

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7. A system that stores data and produces reports timely and

accurately

8. A system that restricts access to information to only authorized

personnel.

3.2.2.2 Functional Requirements

Functional requirements capture the intended behaviour of the system.

This behaviour may be expressed as services, tasks or functions the

system is required to perform. Therefore the proposed system is able

to:

1. Capture the staff, customer, supplier or product information,

store it and make it available at the time of need.

2. Present the internal/admin users with a real-time display of the

number of records in a database.

3. Allow the reuse of the data by the users.

4. Generate reports accurately and timely

5. Search and display customer, supplier or products details, and

other admin activities.

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3.2.2.3 System Requirements

1. Software Requirements

Software Component System Requirement

Operating System for the

server

Windows NT, 2000 or above

Operating System for the client

PC

Windows XP.NT or above

Web Server Apache Web Server Version

2.2.17

Web Browser MS Internet Explorer 9.0 or

above

Database Management System MySQL server version 5.5.8

Table 3.1: Software Requirements

2. Hardware Requirements

Hardware Component System Requirement

Processor Intel Pentium III or above

Processor Speed 800MHZ or above

RAM 128MB or above depending

on the Operating System

Disk Space 50GB or above

Bandwidth 100MBps

Table 3.2: Hardware Requirements

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3.3 System Design

The system design tries to answer some questions such as:

What data is required to generate the desired information?

How must the data be structured?

How will the data be accessed?

How are the data transferred into desired information?

To achieve the answers to these questions, we are to consider the

following representations:

a. System Modeling.

i. Hierarchical Partitioning Model

ii. Entity Relationship Model

iii. Normalized Entities

b. Database Design

i. Table Design

c. Procedural Design

i. System Flow Chart

d. Human Computer Interface Design

i. Input Design

ii. Output Design

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3.4 System Modeling

The techniques used in modeling the system are the Hierarchical

Partitioning Model and the Entity Relationship Model.

Fig. 2: Hierarchical Partitioning of the System.

SMALL BUSINESS

MANAGER ACTIVITIES

DEFINITION

SALES

CATEGORIES

STOCK

ORDER PRODUCTS

VIEW SALES

ADD CATEGORIES

REPORT

PURCHASE

REVIEW

ANALYZE

PRINT

xxviii

Fig. 3: Entity Relationship Model.

The major entities in the system are the purchase, stock, sales and categories. The

branches signify a many-to-many relationship between the purchases entity and

stocks entity, a many-to-one relationship between the stocks entity and

categories entity and a one-to-many relationship between the stocks entity and

the sales entity. The Entity Relationship Model has to be normalized which is the

conversion of many-to-many relationship into a one-to-many relationship.

Fig. 4: A normalized one-to-many relationship between Purchases and Stocks.

PURCHASES

SALES CATEGORIES

STOCKS

Purchases Stocks

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3.5 Database Design

Here, we aim at building a representation of data structure that will use to

store data and the relationship among them. In designing an appropriate

database file system, we adopted each entity as a table and defines the

fields in the table. This primary key identifies an instance of that entity as a

one-to-many or many-to-many entity relationships. There are fives tables in

the database file.

1. Customer Details Table

2. Stock Table

3. Stock Details Table

4. Purchases Table

5. Sales Table

6. User Table

7. Suppliers Table

8. Transactions Table

9. UOM

10. Category Table

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Table 1: Customer Details Table

The Customer Details Table is used to show all the information about the

customers.

Field Name Data Type Field Size

CUSTID (PK) Integer 10 Customer Name Varchar 200

Customer Address Varchar 500 Phone Number Varchar 50

Customer Contact1 Varchar 100 Customer Contact 2 Varchar 100

Balance Integer 11

Table 2: Stock Table

This table shows the collection of stock/item/product available or purchased.


STID (PK) Integer 10 Stock Name Varchar 120

Stock Quantity Integer 10

Table 3: Stock Details Table

This table is a collection of products/stocks/items information or details.

Field Name Data Type Field Size STID (PK) Varchar 120

Stock Name Varchar 120 Stock Quantity Integer 11

Supplier ID Varchar 250

Company Price Decimal 10,2 Selling Price Decimal 10,2

Category Varchar 120 Date Timestamp

Expire Date Datetime

UOM Varchar 120

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Table 4: Purchases Table

This table is a collection of purchase entries.


STID (PK) Varchar 120

Stock name Varchar 260 Stock supplier name Varchar 200

Category Varchar 120 Quantity Integer 11

Company price Decimal 10,2

Selling price Decimal 10,2 Opening stock Integer 11

Closing stock Integer 11 Date Datetime

Username Varchar 120 Type Varchar 50

Sales id Varchar 120

Total Decimal 10,2 Payment Decimal 10,2

Balance Decimal 10,2 Mode Varchar 150

Description Varchar 500

Due Datetime Subtotal Integer 11

Count 1 Integer 11 Bill number Varchar 120

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Table 5: Sales Table

This is simply the collection of sales entries.


SAID (PK) Integer 10 Transaction id Varchar 250

Stock name Varchar 200 Category Varchar 120

Supplier name Varchar 200

Selling price Decimal 10,2 Quantity Decimal 10,2

Amount Decimal 10,2 Date Datetime

Username Varchar 120

Customer id Varchar 120 Subtotal Decimal 10,2

Payment Decimal 10,2 Balance Decimal 10,2

Due Datetime Mode Varchar 250

Description Varchar 500

Count 1 Integer 11 Bill number Varchar 120

Table 6: User Table

This table shows the information of the user.

Field Name Data Type Field Size USID (PK) Integer 10

Username Varchar 120 Password Varchar 120

User type Varchar 20

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Table 7: Suppliers Table

The table shows the details of the product/item/stock supplier.


SUID (PK) Integer 10 Supplier name Varchar 200

Supplier address Varchar 500 Supplier contact 1 Varchar 100

Supplier contact 2 Varchar 100

Balance Integer 11

Table 8: Transactions Table

This table shows collection of sales and purchase cash entries.

Field Name Data Type Field Size TRID (PK) Integer 10

Type Varchar 50 Customer Varchar 250

Supplier Varchar 250

Subtotal Decimal 10,2 Payment Decimal 10,2

Balance Decimal 10,2 Due Datetime

Date Timestamp Rid Varchar 120

Table 9: UOM

This table is used to generating ids.


ID Integer 10 Name Varchar 120

Spec Varchar 120

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Table 10: Category Table

This table shows the product/stock/item category.


CTID (PK) Integer 10

Category name Varchar 120 Category description Varchar 250

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Fig. 5: A Structure showing the Table Relationships

Id

Customer name

Phone number

Customer contact 1

Customer contact 2

balance

Id

Stock id

Stock name

Stock quantity

Supplier id

Category

UOM, etc.

Id

Supplier name

Supplier address

Supplier contact1

Supplier contact2

balance

Id

Transaction id

Stock name

Category

Supplier name

Selling price, etc.

Id

Stock id, Name

Stock sup. Name

Category

Username

Quantity, etc.

Id

Name

Quantity

Id

Category name

Category description

Id

Type

Customer

Supplier

Balance, etc.

Stock Available

Stock Entries

Stock Sales

Category

Transactions

Stock Details

Supplier Details

Customer Details

UOM Details

Id

Name

Spec

Id

Username

Password

User type

Stock User

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From the table relationship, the customer details table has a primary key

(CUSTID) which is the primary keyword in the relational database that uniquely

identifies each record in a row and it has many to many relationships to the

Transactions Table, Stock Entries Table, Stock Sales Table and Supplier Details

Table. The stock available table has a primary key (STID) which is the keyword

that uniquely identifies each record in the relational database and which has one

to many relationships to stock entries table and stock sales table. The stock

details table has multiple keys ( i.e. primary key > 1), they are stock id, stock

name, selling price, etc and in turn has many to many relationships to stock

entries table and stock sales table then one to many relationships to supplier

details table, category table and UOM table. The stock entries table has multiple

keys which are the stock id, stock name, category, quantity, selling price, etc and

has many to many relationships to stock details table and stock sales table. It has

one to many relationships to stock user table, stock available table and category

table. The stock sales table has also multiple keys which are stock name, selling

price, username, quantity, etc and has many to many relationships to stock details

table, stock entries table and stock user table. It has also one to many

relationships to customer details table, supplier details table and transaction

table. The stock user table has a primary key which is username and has a one to

many relationships to stock sales table and stock entries table. The supplier

details table has a primary key which is balance and it has one to many

relationships to customer details table, stock details table, stock entries table and

stock sales table. The transactions table has multiple keys which are balance,

customer, supplier, etc and has many to many relationships with customer details

table, stock entries table and stock sales table and one to many relationships to

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supplier details table and stock details table. The UOM table has many to many

relationships to stock available table and stock details table.

With these arranged relationships, our queries are built and implemented with

record sets and an active database connection.

3.6 Architectural Design

We aim at this stage to adopt the best web-based application development

approach in programming, which will help in making our programs easy to

read, use, understand, debug and maintain. PHP is one of the easiest

programming languages to understand because it is well suited for

writing dynamic web applications. It is a widely used open- source,

general-purpose scripting language. It is fast, versatile, secure, fast,

customizable and its technical support is widely available. PHP is often used

with MySQL, a popular open-source database engine. It supports

procedural programming where each root module calls functions that in

turn call other functions creating a thread execution that can be

represented with a hierarchical Structure Chart diagram.

Our choice of programming language which is PHP has the following

support for the development of the system:

Interaction with HTML forms

Communicate with databases

Generate secure web pages

customizable

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3.7 Procedural Design

The development of the detailed algorithm and flowchart for the functional

description of the system is considered at this stage.

Considering the algorithm of a typical small business management system,

we state the following menu procedures:

Fig. 6: Procedural Design of the Main Program.

Main Program

Add

PAYMENTS

CUSTOMERS

SUPPLIERS

Logout Links View Reports

OUTSTANDING

SSSS

Add Supplier Details

Add Stock Details

Add Customer Details

Add Categories

View Purchase

View Sales

View Stock

PENDINGS

Print Report

Stock Availability

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a) The viewer is presented with four (4) options, from which one is to be chosen

at a time.

1) Option A opens up the “Add” sub menu, with the following submenus:

“Add Stock Details” sub menu where the user is required to add the

stock ID, stock/product name, category, buying rate, selling rate and

the supplier’s name. For quick access, the user can combine (control

key + A).

“ Add Supplier Details” sub menu where the user is required to add

the details of the supplier which are the name, address, contact 1

which could be phone number or home address.

“ Add Customer Details” sub menu where the user is required to add

the details of the customer which are the name, address, phone

number, contact1 and contact2.

“Add Category” sub menu where the user is required to add the

category of the product he/she intends to sell. For example, if it is

wine business, he can choose to add alcoholic drinks as a category of

wine.

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2) Option V opens up “ view” sub menu

“ view sales” sub menu. Here the user is invited to view all the

various sales he or she has made. The sub menu has the id, date of

sale, customer’s name, outstanding payments, total and box for

searching.

“ view purchase” sub menu. Here the user is invited to view all

the purchases made. The sub menu has the following details: stock

id, supplier, date, total and also a search box.

“view stock details” sub menu. Here the user is invited to view all

the items/products in the store. The following details are found here:

stock name, date, supplier, selling price, available stock.

“stock availability” sub menu which shows all the available

quantities of the products which may suggest for reordering from the

supplier.

“ Reports” sub menu where all the reports of the sales, purchase,

stock purchase are viewed for easy assessment.

3) Option L opens up the “links” sub menu. Here quick access is made for the

user to view the details of his customers, suppliers, payments, outstanding

payments and pending payments.

4) Option X opens up the “ logout” sub menu. Here the user ends the whole

program or signs off of the application.

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The logical sequence of the above steps for the menu design was

implemented in the system flow chart below.

3.8

NO

YES

NO

YES YES

YES

YES

NO

YES

Fig. 7: System Flow Chart

NO

Start

Screen

Main Menu

1. Add

2. View

3. Links

4. Logout

Enter an Option

Option 1

?

Option 2

?

A

V

Option 3

?

Option 4

?

L

Logout

X

xlii

Fig. 8: The Add Submenu Data Flow Diagram

Option 3

?

Submenu of Add

1. Add Stock Details

2. Add Supplier Details

3. Add Customer Details

4. Add Categories

A

Exit

A

A

A

Enter an Option

Option 2

?

Option 1

?

Option 4

?

A

NO

YES

NO

YES YES

NO

YES

NO

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Fig. 9: The View Submenu Data Flow Diagram

Submenu of View

1. View sales

2. View purchase

3. View stock

4. Stock Availability

Read an Option

Option 2

?

Option 3

?

?

P

V

Option 4

?

logout

A

V

Option 1

? S

YES

NO

YES

NO

YES

NO

YES

NO

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Fig. 10: The Report and Logout Submenu Data Flow Diagram

R

logout

X

Submenu of Report

View Report

Do you want

to view

another one?

Submenu of Logout

Logout

Logout

NO

YES

xlv

Chapter 4: System Implementation

4.1 System Implementation

System implementation was achieved using MySQL for database design,

PHP scripting language and HTML were used to develop the codes that link

up the system interfaces and the database.

4.2 PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor)

PHP scripting language is famous for the four S’s, Pushman (2000) (14), i.e.

Speed, Stability, Security and Simplicity a reason that justifies its choice for

this project. Below is the description for the four S’s and more advantages of

PHP language:

1. Speed: not only is the speed of execution important, but also that it

does not slow down the rest of the machine. So it does not demand a

lot of system resources. PHP is a thin wrapper around many operating

system calls, so can be very fast.

2. Stability: It is no good being fast if the system crashes every few

thousand pages. No application is bug free, but having a community

of PHP developers and users makes it much harder for bugs to survive

for long.

3. Security: With PHP, the system is protected from malicious attacks

from users, both as programmers and as surfers because it provides

many level of security which can be set in the individual file to the

desired level.

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4. Simplicity: With PHP, even HTML coders can start integrating PHP

into their pages straight away.

5. PHP is available for MS Windows, provides interface for many

different database system, has high performance capability and is

extensible.

6. PHP will run on (almost) any platform.

7. It has lots of HTTP server interfaces.

4.3 MySQL

MySQL , a popular database with web developers, was chosen because of

the following advantages:

1. It is faster.

2. It is inexpensive. MySQL is free under the open source GPL license,

and the fee for a commercial license is very reasonable.

3. It is easy to use. A few simple statements in the SQL language are

needed to build and interact with a MySQL database.

4. It can run on many operating systems. MySQL runs on a wide variety

of operating systems-Windows, Linux, Mac OS, most varieties of

UNIX and others.

5. Storing Data Protection: MySQL offers exceptional security features

that ensure absolute data protection. In terms of database

authentication, MySQL provides powerful mechanisms for ensuring

only authorized users have entry to the database server, with the

ability to block users to the client machine level being possible.

xlvii

6. It supports large databases. MySQL handles databases up to 50

million rows or more.

7. It is customizable. The open source GPL license allows programmers

to modify the MySQL software to fit their own specific environments.

4.4 HTML

HTML was used as the web template because of the following

advantages:

1. HTML web templates can be easily edited with a minimum

knowledge of HTML.

2. The codes of HTML templates are easy to understand and

change in order to convert the template into the unique web site.

3. As HTML is a widely spread format, there are many materials

on it.

4. HTML is available for MS Windows.

4.5 The Database

The database was designed using MySQL database management

system. The database was named “stock” and it contains ten(10)

tables which keep records or data as entered by the user. It is this

database that is consulted to answer queries.

4.6 Graphical User Interface (GUI)

The user interfaces consist of various windows that enable different

categories of users to interact with the system. The forms were

developed using HTML and PHP. Different forms were developed to

enable the users perform the following tasks:

xlviii

1. Login to the system.

2. Record products.

3. Search for a customer or supplier.

4. Add categories of products.

5. View products

6. View reports generated.

4.6.1 Screen Formats

The information that is managed by the system is captured on

different screens at different stages. This section shows these screen

shots and how they are used to capture the information managed by

the system. The user logs in the system by entering his/her username

and password in order to access the system for example in the form

below, the user is logging in using “ngozi” as username. After logging

in the system, the user can view customer’s details, add products, etc.

Here, the user means the one who uses the system to manage data.

xlix

Fig. 11: User Logon Screen

l

4.6.2 Reports

The system is able to generate a number of reports which can be used

in planning and making decision in future.

Fig. 12: Report Screen

This shows the total sales, the received amount and the total outstanding

amount to be paid. Also it bears the data, sales ID, customer, amount paid,

item sold, the quantity of item sold, balance, etc.

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4.6.3 Human Computer Interface

A good interface between the computer and the human user is

necessary for easy understanding and east transaction. The design of

this small customizable business manager is highly interactive so as to

create a good interface for the sole aim of user friendliness.

Fig. 13: Human Interface Screen

This shows other useful submenus. It contains a logical relationship between

hierarchical models whereby the entities represent the main menu and

submenus.

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4.6.4 View Sales Screen

This shows the details of the entire sales made on weekly, monthly

and yearly basis. It contains the sales ID, the customer’s name, date of

sale, item sold, outstanding payment and the total amount.

Fig. 14: View Sales Screen

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4.6.5 View Stock Detail Screen

This shows the details of the stock available. It displays items like

the stock name, quantity, supplier, data, etc.

Fig. 15: View Stock Detail Screen

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Chapter 5: Summary and Conclusion

5.1 Summary

The purpose of the study was to build a computerized small business

management system to replace the existing manual system. To achieve the

objectives of study, the existing system was studied and analyzed, by

comparing the strong and weak points of the system.

Implementation was done using PHP scripting language embedded in

HTML for the user interfaces and MYSQL for database design. PHP

enabled Apache web server to effect the connections between the database

and the web browser. The new system is therefore able to do the following:

1. Capturing of personal/bio data is done once; on reception as opposed

to the manual system where the customer’s detail would be recorded

at every level in different registers. This avoids duplication and saves

time.

2. Retrieve information from the database as quickly as one searches on

the screen compared to the old system which involved paper files

which were vulnerable to displacement and damage.

3. Authenticate the users with the access control facility to prevent

unauthorized users from accessing the data.

4. Validate the entries by prompting the user whenever a wrong

command is entered to avoid unnecessary errors that can distort

information.

5. Update the database whenever new information is entered.

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6. Reports are generated quickly and correctly, unlike in the old system

where information would be scattered in forms.

5.2 Conclusion

Based on the findings and analysis, computerization in the management of

any small business is a venture worth to invest in. Once taken seriously and

embraced, there are alot of benefits that can be realized therein. Both

management and the customers it is serving will benefit from it. For example

customers will no longer wait for long hours to be attended to because the

time that would be spent looking for information would be saved.

Errors that were resulting from lack of information for proper decision

making on the part of business directors will be minimized. Records which

were stored in the record books and sometimes get lost there, will now be

stored electronically and will be more safe. Therefore there will be the right

information at the point of sale.

Periodic reports which are generated with the help of a computer are more

accurate and quick. Therefore with the introduction of computerization, the

problem of late reporting and errors in the reports will be no more.

It is important to note that this system is based on a local area network. This

facilitates the sharing of data in different sections of the business. This helps

personnel access the data at their sections instead of moving from section to

section looking for information which is time consuming.

Finally, the design of a customizable small business manager was intended

to automatically update and maintain items being traded. Having test run the

program with real examples, it is concluded that the aims and the objectives

earlier stated have been met.

lvi

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