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Background Information
My father works as a car rentals sales man for enterprise rant a car. The main part of this business involves hiring out cars as well as providing roadside assistance. I will only concentrate on the car rental part of the business. To keep the business running successfully a lot of information processing has to be carried out.
The records of customers hiring cars must be stored and processed. Records will be added when bookings are made. They can also be updated when customer¡¦s personal details change or details of the job changes. These records have to be updated regularly e.g., when a car has been booked and when a car has been collected. If the hire cost is not fully paid when the car is collected a bill reminder will be written out and posted to the customer who hired the car. When the car is collected and the bill is fully paid a record of the job will be transferred to an archive file.
Feasibility of Computer based solution to the problem
Before deciding on whether or not I will computerise the business I need to consider if it is feasible or not. In order to do this I will look individually at each of the problems in the current system and decide if the introduction of a computerised system would solve or greatly reduce these problems. As well as looking at the problems I will also consider what hardware and software are needed to computerise the system. Finally I will consider the time that will be needed to implement this system and the costs that will be incurred while doing so. Not only will I look at the costs but I will also outline the benefits of the new system.
Problems in the current system and how they will be reduced
1. Mistakes can easily be made e.g. bookings may be overlooked resulting in jobs not being done on time and poor customer service. Mistakes can also be made when calculating customer¡¦s bills or producing VAT returns. The new system would ensure that bookings are not overlooked and that bills and VAT returns are calculated quickly and correctly.
. Some of the tasks are extremely time consuming e.g. it takes quite a lot of time to locate a given invoice when it has to be updated e.g. to record a payment. As the records would all be stored in a computer in the new system, records could be located faster and updated more easily. Producing hand written bill reminders and searching for required information e.g. lists of cars to be collected on a given date or jobs for a given customer is also time consuming tasks. The new system would ensure that bill reminders and reports are produced quickly.
. Job records are easily lost in the current system as they are recorded on invoices, which are moved around during the processing. They may also be damaged or destroyed which would lead to confusion in the office and probably lost income. Again as the records will all be stored in a computer they will be kept very secure so records are less likely to be lost, damaged or destroyed.
4. All the information needed cannot be easily retrieved from the current system e.g. an up to date list of customers who owe money. The new system would allow numerous reports to be created to suit the business¡¦ needs for example a list of bookings for a day or a list of customers who owe money to the business.
5. The current records take up a lot of space, i.e. a number of large filing cabinets. This problem would be solved by using the new system as records would be sorted on discs and on the computer, this would greatly reduce the needs of filing cabinets.
Fact Finding
In order to find out the processing steps that take place within the current system I could carry out numerous methods of fact-finding
1. Interviewing the staff
. Inspecting records
. Observing the staff while they work.
I will use interviewing as my fact-finding method as it allows me to sit down and find out first hand what the problems are with this current system.
During the fact-finding process I was made aware of the problems that occur with the current system. As a result of these methods of fact finding the following questions have been answered.
1. What is the current system and how effective do you think it is?
In the current system a diary is used to record details of any bookings i.e. the customer name, address, telephone number, the car hired and an estimated cost of the hire are recorded on the page in the diary which corresponds to the date and time the car is due to be returned. The same procedure is carried out when a car is booked for collection. When a booking is cancelled it is just crossed out in the diary. The counter staff then use the details recorded in the diary to write out invoices which contains the name, the address of the customer, the date the car is due to be collected. The counter staff then gives this invoice to the customer when he/she collects the car. All of the staff agreed that the current system was reasonably effective but there was definitely room for improvement.
. What happens when a customer makes a payment?
If the customer gives the counter staff any payments he/she records the details of the payment on the invoice. The customer may see this as a post payment i.e. a deposit. The counter staff would give the customer a receipt at this stage recording the payment given.
. How do customers who owe the business money be identified?
At the end of each month the secretary checks through all the invoices of the cars that have been returned and identifies jobs that have not been fully paid for. The secretary then writes out bill reminders, which are posted to these customers.
4. Do you think mistakes are made easily in the business, i.e. bookings being overlooked or mistakes being made when calculating bills or VAT returns?
They all agreed that mistakes are easily made but they also did say that mistakes cannot just be blamed on the system, it is often the case that it is their carelessness that is to blame.
5. Do you think many of the tasks are time consuming?
They all stated the main reasons for tasks being time consuming is that they have to write out invoices instead of entering the details into a computer. They also said that due to the use of invoices and handwritten records, it is very time consuming to search for required invoices or records in a filing cabinet for example. They also pointed out that writing out bill reminders is a very slow and error prone process.
6. Do you feel that invoices or records are easily lost, damaged or destroyed?
All agreed that because they maintain a very good file managing system it is not very often that invoices or records are lost, damaged or destroyed, however they did say that it has happened a few times before and will most likely happen again.
7. Is it possible for all information needed to be retrieved from the current system?
Both the counter staff and the secretary agreed that it is definitely not possible for all information to be retrieved for example it is difficult and time consuming to for example identify all customers who owe the business money.
. Do you feel that the current records take up a lot of space?
It was a definite answer that all the records and invoices take up an enormous amount of space as several file cabinets; cupboards and drawers are used to store these.
10. Lastly do you think the new computerised system should be introduced?
Again all gave the same answer. They all thought that the new system would meet all the needs of the business and at the same time make their jobs easier and the quicker its introduced the better.
List of problems
Many problems are occurring in the current system.
1. Mistakes can easily be made e.g. bookings may be overlooked resulting in jobs not being done on time and poor customer service. Mistakes can also be made when calculating customers bills or producing VAT Returns.
. Some of the tasks are extremely time consuming e.g. it takes quite a lot of time to locate a given invoice when it has to be updated e.g. to record a payment. Producing hand written bill reminders and searching for required information e.g. lists of cars to be returned or collected on given date or jobs for a given customer is also time consuming tasks.
. Job records are easily lost in the current system as they are recorded on invoices, which are moved around during the processing. They may also be damaged or destroyed which would lead to confusion in the office and probably lost income.
4. All the information needed cannot be easily retrieved from the current system e.g. an up to date list of customers who owe money.
5. The current records take up a lot of space, i.e. a number of large filing cabinets.
Overall Objectives
The main objectives of the new system are to speed up information processing, reduce errors and so providing a better car rental service to the public and to reduce the amount of space required to hold the car records. The new system should also allow more and better information to be retrieved.
The overall objectives of my business are
1. The current system involves a lot of handwriting, which can lead to a lot of mistakes for example an employee may not be able to read another person¡¦s handwriting. Any new system should reduce these errors.
. Locating a required invoice i.e. searching through the filing cabinet for a required file is a very time consuming task in the current system. Any new system must speed up processing.
. Any new system should allow better and more up to date information for example an up to date list of customers who have not paid their bills. The manager should also be able to produce reports based on usual and extreme searches.
4. Any new system should greatly reduce the amount of space required to store records.
Detailed Objectives
Printed lists should be user friendly (i.e. they should be clear, easy to read and the should contain all relevant details). As a result of this, mistakes should be greatly reduced e.g. no bookings should be overlooked.
1. Records should be able to be added easily when a new customer is added, a customer makes a booking, a customer makes a payment.
. Records should be able to be easily removed when a booking is cancelled and the record placed in an archive file, records should be easily updated when
. Customers details change
4. Job details change e.g. car information to change, address the car is being rented to etc
5. Payment details change
6. When the details of a car change
I will need to be able to retrieve a required record when a customer phones to enquire about their booking i.e. Instead of having to look through a filing cabinet I can just bring their record up on the screen with just the click of a button.
I will need to be able to produce printed lists of Personal details of Customers, Customers¡¦ financial details and Customers who owe the business money. I would also like to print a customer statement for a given customer by entering a name or Customer ID. Details of Jobs, details of jobs for a given date and jobs for a given customer, Details of cars. Details of Payments, details made on a given date and payments made by a given customer
The new system should greatly reduce the amount of space required to hold the records, as they will be stored on d
Identification Of Prospective Users
Within Enterprise rent a car there is on)y a few members of staff as the business is very small and not well known. There is a manager who runs the day to day running of the business. There is a sales representative who will deal with customers and will propose advertising schemes to the business. There is a mechanic who will look after the cars to ensure that the customers get excellent working cars.
Data Source Destination
Current Processing
Data Flow Diagram
Conclusion
I have decided that I will use Microsoft Access as this will not take long to set up as a database is very simple and easy to understand. There is not much programming experience required as it is very user friendly and no commands are needed to be known. The database can also be altered to execute problems and because of these issues I have decided to use Microsoft access as my computerised system.
Executable limitations
When computerizing the current system not everything can be computerised due to the fact that it will not be feasible to do it.
1. Maybe wages cannot be computerised.
. Maybe I will not be able to afford the latest hardware such as a Pentium four processor.
. Maybe I will not be able to afford the most up to date software package such as Windows 004.
Entity Relationship Diagram
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