Project 3: System Design Specification

Introduction

PEP is a small company that is already an expert in dealing with the low voltage motors. Due to the rapid growth that the company is experiencing, PEP is being faced with some significant challenges. The Finance department has been overwhelmed and is just lagging behind regarding billing, processing of the invoices, and making of the payments. PEP will, therefore, employ use of a framework that will incorporate the input, output as well as processing the programming that will be capable of dealing with all the invoicing, charging, and all the information regarding the stock.

Moreover, the system will also address other problems, for instance, the lack of a lockbox account, electronic invoicing strategies like the use of emails and the lack of protective features to protect the clients. This section of the paper will entail a comprehensive outline of the functional requirements that are necessary for ensuring that the consideration and design goals can project a reliable and an accurate overview of the architectural design of the system. It will also give a precise explanation of how the data design is associated and related to the system.

Output Layout

PEP is structured and designed to work on a schedule that enables it to make a report at every end of the month. The reports comprise of the performance and the progress of all the departments. However, the main interest is to keep track of how the invoices are managed and recorded. This will also ensure that the collection of the payments from the clients is monitored. The new system will bring functional requirements that precisely describe the key functionality of the systems towards solving of the problem.The system will focus on information received, the information input to the system, and the overall procedure of how the information will be processed.

Output Requirement

Monthly Invoice Reporting

 This kind of report will be generated, and it will entail a display of the current situation from the department of marketing. This is because it is the marketing department that is delegated all the duties of ensuring the maintenance of all the codes for all the products, pricing, and keeping a database of all the invoices at the 15th of each month. The snapshot below gives an exact picture of how the invoice will look like.

Receivable Reports Accounts (AR)

The AR reports are very important in giving off a plethora of reports formats that enable ease of access to the various accounts concerning the receivables. These reports give a chance to review the status of finance charges, open credits, and the credit refunds. These reports al so show the information on amounts of charges and discounts. All the customer payments that will be made in lump sum payment to the PEP will be due at every 10th of a new month. The payments received will be first processed through the Accounts Receivable Department (AR).  It is the AR department that will take the responsibility of updating the clients’ accounts details as soon as the payments are made and received. The Account Receivable Report will look as captured in the picture below with all the information on payments received as precisely described.

Overdue Collection Reports

The reports may comprise information of the overdue payments from the clients. This payment reports must also include all the annual information tax reports payable to the authorities. The Overdue report must contain the following features, Field and description, the start date, end date, and the show of payment. It is the duty of the invoicing department to identify all the overdue accounts and take the appropriate action. In most instances, the Overdue Reports are forwarded to the Accounts Receivable department (AR) and the department of sales. The Accounts Receivable department takes action and addresses all the collections concerning the below-listed criteria.

Thirty days overdue

Sixty days overdue

More than sixty days overdue

 The Overdue Report will look as described in the picture below.

Input Layout

For accurate and reliable output, valid entry and particular entry of the data will be adhered just to ensure all the critical information is fed into the system. This will make sure that all the critical reports are availed on time to the ITSC and other departments that are authorized to access the information. The input layout will put more emphasis on an accurate entry of data as any mistake can affect the outcome of the whole process.

Input Requirements

The timely processing of the invoices ensures smooth running of the business as payments are made and processed on time (Lane, 2015). To accurately acquire critical information for creation and compilation of the Monthly Invoicing Report, it is very important that data that is described in the picture below be entered as input into the system.

To accurately acquire the relevant information important in the making of Accounts Receivable Report, it is very important to input the data described below into the system.

To make proper acquisition of the information that is important in the creation of an Overdue Collection Report, it is very important to input the below-listed data into the system, fully spelled name of the Customer Organization name, the Address of the Client Street, the customer city, customer state, customer contact information, products ordered and their date, quantity ordered, pricing of the product per unit, the amount paid, the number of days overdue, the percentage of the overdue amount, and the employee ID.

The snapshot below shows the data must be input into the system.

Database/File Design Ends

The below diagram pictures explains the relationship that exists the information that is fed into the system as input and the information categorized as output as per the requirement of the system. The monthly invoicing Report is detailed in the below diagram. All the necessary features of the monthly invoice are captured as shown.

The AR diagram is as shown in the below picture.

The process of money collection is one of the jobs that majority of the people shy from. People do not feel comfortable or at peace when confronting people and requesting them for payments. However, having a clear collection plan is very important in requesting for the payments, the percentage in the number of overdue invoices will enable the tracking of the receivables that have delayed in payments (Rouse, 2014). The main objective is to ensure that the clients do not make late payments and this will culminate in decreasingt debts in future. The Overdue Collection Diagram is more complex and well is illustrated in the following picture below.

References

Lane, D. (2015). The chief information officer’s body of knowledge: people, process, and technology. [Books24x7 version] Retrieved from http://common.books24x7.com.ezproxy.umuc.edu/toc.aspx?bookid=44315.

Rouse, M. (2014). IT Controls. TechTarget. Retrieved on November 27, 2017 from

http://searchcompliance.techtarget.com/definition/IT-controls