Question

Janet, after years of working as a hairdresser and as a makeup artist, decided to go into business for herself. Over time the business has grown into a spa and beauty retreat and she now employs a few staff. With her growing operation she has identified the need to implement a computerized accounting information system. In order to have a system that meets her needs exactly and also to save cost, she has asked you to create a simple, customized solution for her business. Her immediate need is for a customer sales information system, so that is what you will now create. With customer service being so important to Janet, her customers tend to become regulars and she wants to maintain a record of each customer’s contact information and preferences so that the spa will know what is important to the customer without having to be told each visit. The customer information that Janet considers important to maintain is the full name, cellphone number, favourite treatment, and special considerations (e.g. some customers have allergies or require fragrance-free products). For employees, Janet just needs to record the names and cell phone numbers in the database. The spa also has a standard list of services which each have a standard name, description and price. Janet also wants a database record of each customer visit both for customer billing at the time of service, as well as for future analysis. Janet wants to refer to these sales transactions as “Visits” in the database in order to reflect the spa’s focus on customers’ experiences. For each of these customer visits it is important to record a unique visit identifier, the date, the customer, the main staff member who served the customer, and the service or services experienced (sold)

Based on Janet’s requirements, list out the entities and relationships that should be present in the database, indicating the cardinality of each relationship.

Answer 1

Any soft ware or automated assistance of any nature for the purpose of accounting has to be made in accordance with standard accounting procedures. It because the rules on standard accounting procedure is set such that it fulfills all the accounting requirements of its users. Let us see what are the details that will be incorporated in accounting using standard procedure.

1) Details of company- All details pertaining to the company who is preparing the accounts with details of financial year of start of book keeping, period of start of book keeping, provisions for adding new financial . It should be noted that all contact details of the company should be added.

2) The ledgers of all parties associated with company with their contact details, and ledgers of transaction accounts including tax accounts pertaining the business.

3) Preparation of final statements such as Trial balance, P&L and balance sheet.

4) Preparation of statements such ad cash flow statement , fund flow statement, working capital analysis statements, Inventory statements and reports, ratio analysis statements.

The above details give some of the important areas that a book of account covers when accounted as per standard procedure. Therefore if I am approached with a purpose as stated at the details, then I would take steps to initiate for preparing an application or soft ware which will include all the automated features to operate and incorporate all the details specified above. As such details covers all requirement of the person in need of it as per the details, this will most appropriate to serve all her purposes.