This study may not be achievable without the cooperation, guidance and support and of some persons and organizations. University adopted Supervisor Dr. —PQR—(Your prof. ), Lecturer, Department of Department of Accounting/ Financial Management, ABC University, was the resource of the inspiration and motivation to this Thesis effort. He has provided vital assistance along all the way. His help is immeasurable. Department of business, ABC University, is another resource to gaining this study. It has provided valuable modulation, books, Journals, Researches and too many efforts for this study.
Teacher and staffs of the Department and the Faculty Dean are extremely helpful. Devoid of their assistance, this study could not have reached its conclusion. Encouragement, love and caring of my family ensured a working environment for such a project without disturbing the normal family routine. All the optimistic attributes of this Thesis have driven from those mentioned above. The conclusions or any other errors, omissions and mistakes within this thesis are attributable just to the author. ABSTRACT.
In the project, the main area of study is to analyze the functionality of the current manual system and come up with a feasibility study report which will aid in the development of all the proposed computerized system. The report will help the management to identify problems with the current system, prepare for the project funding, make necessary adjustment and give the go ahead for the project development to start. During the analysis the organizational functionality, problem areas and the association with external entities must be analyzed in details.
As a system analyst it is required that the cost benefit analysis must be carried out for the proposed new system to make sure that the new system brings the highest returns to the organization. The main objective here is to come up with a systematic development of the new system starting with the system analysis, system design, construction, testing, implementation, training and finally changeover and maintenance. The new system must be developed within the constraints of the available resources in terms of budgetary allocations and time.
The new system will aim at ensuring that all functionalities of the hotel are automated hence eliminating the need for the manual handling of reservations and staff records. It will help the hotel to save on costs in terms of salaries due to downscaling of staff to handle customer bookings, reduce the paper work hence saving on storage costs, easier retrieval of documents due to the first random access of records in the system, security of data stored in the system due to usage of continuous backups of the data. History/Background. Calif bite hotel is located 3kilometres south coast of California.
Established in 2001, the hotel caters for travelers, locals and those on holidays around the California beach. It is a medium-sized hotel that caters for 500 customers a day and accommodation facilities comprising of self contained state of the art single and double rooms, a modern entertainment module comprising of the Victoria live band and a discotheque to entertain the revelers, travelers and residents around the area. It currently uses a manual system which has proved to b e very inefficient and unreliable for the time it has been operational hence resulting in losses for the entire company.
It has a small organizational structure with 60 members of staff. It has several departments which include accounts, admissions, administration, housekeeping and catering. The structure is organized in a vertical hierarchy which starts from the top management going down to the junior employees of the company. Problem statement This project is based on computerizing the hotel’s operations, which is currently handling most of their daily operations manually. There is a high rate of bureaucracy within the organization. The problems currently faced from the manual operations of the company are:- • The amount of paperwork involved is high.
• The turnaround time for obtaining information to make decisions is highly time consuming. • Inefficiency. • Error rate is high in a manually functioning organization. • The tendency to lose important documents is high • No backups data in manual system, even if the organization keeps backup data there will be a problem of space and data redundancy. • The management of the client records and payroll system is not efficient. There the aim of this project is to minimize the current problems faced by this company by computerizing the entire system and making this a more efficient organization.
The hotel provides the clients with information relating to accommodation and catering services. When the customer requires consultation the following process (currently) is adopted:- a) The customer approaches the staff at the reception and fills in the check-in form. b) The staff then types the form into the system and the system generates a unique client number. c) The data is printed and placed in a folder, which is then allocated a room. d) The staff then informs the customer of the charges. e) Customers can make payment in full or in partial. f) Receipts are generated.
The hotel plans to eliminate as much as manual work as possible within their existing work procedures. Due to these problems, the company’s management has decided to introduce an automated system in order to make operations in the company effective and efficient. These operations include:- • Booking clients who check into the hotel • Processing payments for the clients that have been booked in • Process reports about the status of the rooms, bar and conference • Maintain update records of the rooms available in the hotel. Aims and Objectives. The main aim of this system is to make the operations in the hotel more effective and efficient.
The objectives of the new automated system are to:- 1. Make the data in the organization more secure against hackers and people who maliciously destroy them 2. Enable faster bookings of the clients who check into the hotel 3. Enable faster bookings of the clients who check into the hotel 4. Make the processing of payments within the company faster and reliable 5. Monitor all payments made 6. Monitor how the rooms are allocated and food in the catering department. Scope of the System. The new system is expected to perform the following operations:- • Check in clients
• Check out clients • Process room reservations • Process payments • Generate ad-hoc reports for the entire company Generally the system will mostly revolve around the accounts, admissions, and catering departments. Project Description Computerization in the company has been keenly approached as a way of creating a niche in the market as a result of stiff competition that the company has faced. The new technology will help the company respond timely to the suggestions made by their clients and staff and will also enable them to track payments made by the clients easily.
It will also enable the company redeploy extra staffs booking visitors into the hotel. This will result in saving of operational expenses that could have been used as staff salaries. Project Deliverables. The new system will require the following inputs:- • Project Initiation Document ? Business case ? Terms of reference ? Project boundaries ? Project management The system will in turn produce the following outputs:- • Program specifications • File/DB specifications • User procedure specifications The methodology used to develop the program is the waterfall. This method is best suited for developing large, high quality systems.
Requirements of the New System. For the new system to be fully operational, it requires resources both hardware and software to make its implementation successful. These include:- Hardware Requirements. • Pentium III or IV computer with at least 128 Mb and 40GB of Hard Disk. • A printer • Network interface cards to network the computers • Cables. Software Requirements. • Visual basic 6. 0 • Microsoft Access • Microsoft Project • Microsoft Visio drawing. Constraints of the New System. There are a few limitations and constraints that I found in the new hotel reservation system such as:-
• Additional professional staff may need to be recruited to run the new system. • There is a limit in the amount of money that the management can spend on the equipment and other expenses for the new hotel reservation system therefore the new system is developed in phases. • Computerizing the hotel’s operations which handles most of their work manually, the amount of manpower needed will decrease therefore the excess staff, after implementation of the system will have to be laid off, and this may result to the economic threat to the laid off workers.
• Computerization of the organization’s vital information will expose it to threats from hackers and other unauthorized access to its data. The few problems existing within the system will be minimized during the design phase. The weaknesses of the current system include: 1. Errors in calculations The bills have to be calculated individually for each process, so there can be errors in the calculations resulting in wrong final amounts payable by the customer. 2. Time loss The final bill to be created needs the information from all other bills that were involved and then they have to be sorted and compiled into the report.
3. Replication of data Since there is a great amount of data being input into the system, there is a chance of duplicating certain details. This will cause errors or prove to be hindrance in creating reports. LOGICAL SYSTEM SPECIFICATION (BUSINESS SYSTEMS DESIGN) Database Design. It is the description of the database design that shows all the attributes, the size and the description of the attributes. The lists of the tables used in the system include: • Customers • Reservations • Invoice • Meals and beverages • Login • Payment The database design is shown in Figure 2 in the appendix.
System and Interface Design. This is the description of the entire system design which includes form design, connection with the database, accessing and modifying records and ensuring the system functions according to the user specifications. This is where almost all the entire work in the system’s development is done. It designs the user interface (i. e. the point through which the user interacts with the system). The links and connections between various forms and databases are also considered here to ensure that communication in the system is effective.