ABSTRACT

This research work is the design and implementation of Application software for small business, a case study of JUI bookshop Lokoja, Kogi State. The new technology can be an important source of competitive advantage for most business organizations, especially small businesses. The research work outlined the structure and methodology in designing and implementing Application Software in small businesses. The developed Application Software was tested with real-world data to make sure the program works. Alpha testing was used to debug the program. The research work has enhanced service delivery for effective management of sales of books in JUI Bookshop.

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Software development activities................................................................ 2

Figure 2 A layer structures................................................................................................ 9

Figure 3 Requirements analysis.................................................................................... 24

Figure 4   A sketch of the form for Application software planning........... 29

Figure 5 The Designed Application software interface................................... 35

Figure 6:Testing application with real world data.............................................. 36

Figure 7: Visual basic window environment......................................................... 38

Figure 8 Properties window........................................................................................... 39

Figure 9 lblQuantity properties settings        Figure 10: Label default

settings........................................................................................................................... 41

Figure 11 Showing command button default properties settings............... 42

Figure 12 showing command button after changing the settings............... 42

Figure 13 shows the sample result,............................................................................. 46

TABLE OF CONTENTS

COVER PAGE………………………………………………………….I

TITLE PAGE…………………………………………………………...II

CERTIFICATION --------------------------------------------------------------- III

DEDICATION ------------------------------------------------------------------- IV

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ------------------------------------------------------ V

ABSTRACT ---------------------------------------------------------------------- VI

LIST OF FIGURES ------------------------------------------------------------ VII

CHAPTER ONE ------------------------------------------------------------------ 1

INTRODUCTION ------------------------------------------------------------- 1

1.1     Background of Study --------------------------------------------------- 1

1.2    Theoretical frame work ------------------------------------------------ 2

1.3      Statement of Problems ------------------------------------------------ 3

1.4.     Objective of the Study ------------------------------------------------- 4

1.5.   Significance of the Study ----------------------------------------------- 4

1.6.    Scope of the Study ------------------------------------------------------ 4

1.7.          Limitations of the Study ------------------------------------------- 4

CHAPTER TWO ----------------------------------------------------------------- 7

LITERATURE REVIEW ------------------------------------------------------ 7

2.1   Introduction -------------------------------------------------------------- 7

Platform software: ------------------------------------------------------------ 10

Application software: -------------------------------------------------------- 11

Design concepts --------------------------------------------------------------- 11

Design considerations ------------------------------------------------------- 13

2.2     Qualities of good program ------------------------------------------- 17

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2.3   Small Businesses -------------------------------------------------------- 18

The role of small business in economic development ------------------- 21

The Role of Small Business on Employment Generation --------------- 22

CHAPTER THREE ------------------------------------------------------------- 24

SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND METHODOLOGY ---------------------------- 24

3.1    Research Methodology ------------------------------------------------ 24

3.2   Analysis of the existing system ---------------------------------------- 24

Requirements analysis ------------------------------------------------------- 24

3.3    Application program analysis techniques -------------------------- 25

CHAPTER FOUR --------------------------------------------------------------- 26

SYSTEM DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION --------------------------- 26

4.1 Introduction --------------------------------------------------------------- 26

4.2.1 Application program design process -------------------------------- 28

1. Designing the users interface. ------------------------------------- 28

1. Planning the properties --------------------------------------------- 30

4.3.   System Requirement --------------------------------------------------- 36

4.4.   Application Program Implementation (Procedure) --------------- 37

Designing the user interface --------------------------------------------- 37

Setting the Properties ----------------------------------------------------- 39

The Application Project Coding Solution ------------------------------ 42

The general declaration section ------------------------------------------ 42

Data declarations ---------------------------------------------------------- 43

Calculation with variables, constants and properties of certain

objects ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 43

Formatting data ------------------------------------------------------------ 44

Display and printing of result using commands ----------------------- 45

4.5 Discussion of Results. --------------------------------------------------- 45

4.6 Summary of Findings ---------------------------------------------------- 46

CHAPTER FIVE ---------------------------------------------------------------- 47

Summary, Conclusion and Recommendations ---------------------------- 47

5.1.   Summary ---------------------------------------------------------------- 47

5.1.1    Implication of the Study. -------------------------------------------- 47

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IX

The summary of all the amount of sales is calculated and display without stress. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 47

5.2    Conclusion -------------------------------------------------------------- 47

5.3    Recommendation ------------------------------------------------------- 48

5.3.1    Suggestion for Further Studies ------------------------------------ 48

REFERENCES------------------------------------------------------------------- 49

APPENDIX A -------------------------------------------------------------------- 50

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1     Background of Study

According to Bridge and peel (1999) a company has to keep up with technological changes to maintain advantage. However introduction and implementation of new IT is not as straight forward as one might think and often requires external expertise to be successful, implementation is a rather multi-dimensional and complex process and concerns both technical and social aspects within an organization (Levine and rossmoore, 1993). In order to achieve part of this goal, software has to be developed for business concern to take advantage of this. Creating a software system using a software engineering process contains three main tasks or phases: the functions and features of the expected software has to be defined, the software has to be implemented and it has to be deployed in an operating environment.

Most software systems are developed as project since a software system is usually unique and the software should be produced in a certain time limit and resources. The sizes of projects vary a lot.

There are also a lot of different methods and different process models to manage the projects but the common feature is that phases mentioned above are always included in to a software system development project even though they usually are divided and specified into more detailed tasks. The functions and features of the expected software are called requirements. The word

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requirements has been defined more precisely by Kotonoya and Sommerville [1998] as a description of how the system should behave, application domain information, constraints on System’s   operation  or   specifications   of   a  system   property   or attribute.   Requirement    analysis    is    the    phase    of     software development where feasibilities studies are made, competitors and existing systems are examined and the new system is specified.

1.2    Theoretical frame work

A software development professional oversee the processes of software development, the management of the software development project, and the maintenance of the installed software in an organizations. Software development activities process represented in waterfall model can be illustrated as follows

Requirements

Design

Implementatio

Implementation

Verification

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Requirement: this is an important task in creating software product in which the customers need is analyzed. An analysis of the scope of the development should be determined and clearly stated. This is often called a scope document.

Designing: domain analysis is often the first step in attempting to design a new piece of software, whether it is an addition to existing software, new application, a new subsystem or a whole new system

Implementation: is the part of the process where software engineers actually program the code for the project.

Verification: is an integral and important part of the software development process. This part of the process ensures that bugs are recognized as early as possible

Maintenance: to cope with newly discovered problems or new requirements can take far more time than the initial development of the software. It may be necessary to add codes that do not fit the original design to correct an unforeseen problem or it may be that a customer is requesting more functionality and code can be added to accommodate their requests.

1.3       Statement of Problems

The operational procedure of JUI Bookshop has always existed in manual form. Stock taking and calculation of sales has to be done in a rigorous way which causes delay most especial when there more customers to attend to and it has also been difficult to inform customer of available new product and services. In view of

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all these there is the need to move away from traditional way of doing things by embracing information technology.

1.4.     Objective of the Study

The purpose of this task is to design application software to address all the issues mentioned above i.e.

1. Calculate the number of books sold

1. The amount of discount given

• The discounted amount

1. The summary of sales.

1.5.   Significance of the Study

The importance of carrying out the task can be enumerated as follows

1. Fast and efficient service delivery

1. Improve accountability

• To improve sales

1. To improve stock taking.

1.6.     Scope of the Study

The scope of this project task covers the problem clarification, program designing, coding, testing and documentation.

1.7.     Limitations of the Study

In the course of executing this research work a lot of challenges were encountered ranging from epileptic supply of electricity, lack of access to information to previous study in similar area. Official work overload in

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1.8.     Operational definition of terms

Systems analysis is the study of sets of interacting entities, including computer systems analysis. This field is closely related to requirements analysis or operations research. It is also "an explicit formal inquiry carried out to help someone (referred to as the decision maker) identify a better course of action and make a better decision that he might otherwise have made.

Pseudo code: is a method of designing a program using normal human-language statement to describe the logic and the processing flow.

A Program: is a list of instructions that the computer must follow to process data into information.

Visual Basic Programming: is a method of creating programs in which the programmer makes connections between objects by drawing, pointing, and clicking on diagrams and icons and by interacting with flow charts.

Form Window: is where the form that makes up user interface are designed

Visual Basic Environment: is where visual basic projects are created and tested.

Application software: Is software that has been developed to solve a particular problem, perform useful work on general purpose tasks and are commonly used tools for increasing people’s productivity.

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Event-driven programming (EDP) or event-based programming is a programming paradigm in which the flow of the program is determined by events—e.g., sensor outputs or user actions (mouse clicks, key presses) or messages from other programs or threads.

Event-driven programming can also be defined as an application architecture technique in which the application has a main loop which is clearly divided down to two sections:

• the first is event selection (or event detection)
• The second is event handling.