DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A COMPUTERISED INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR A SMALL BUSINESS ENTERPRISE (CASE STUDY OF TEXACO FILLING STATION)

CHAPTER ONE

1.0     INTRODUCTION

          The traditional management as well as organizational behaviour and operation research theories agrees that the organization provides the system and decision centers for decision-making.

          Information as a data has been transformed through some process either (mechanical, electronic, mathematical or human) into an information system, with the view of achieving a good.

          Information system in many organizations has various definitions due to several discipline, but in this research work, information system is defined as it relates for a small business enterprise.  It all involves the flow of data within the organization for effective decision making.  The neglect of a business enterprise information system due to economic constraints poses a lot of problem.  Business enterprise information system comprises of sub-system which includes purchase system, management a well as planning system.

          Furthermore, business enterprise of information is categorized into business and policy.  The budgets and capital investment analysis are financial information whereas information generated from processing of transaction data are of accounting.

1.1     BACKGROUND

          In the early days, before the advert of the Europeans, the people in Nigeria were engaged in various kinds of occupations which were greatly determined by factors such as geographical location, nature of the land and the cultural background of the community.

          People living along the reverine area engaged in fishing and net making, others hunted, made clothes and built different kinds of shelters, while people with vast areas of arable land farmed and produced both food and cash crops. Still others engaged in creative activities such as carving, metal work and black smiting.  People specialized in their various areas of endeavours and exchanged their products with one another. Trading them was by barter whereby goods were exchanged with goods.  For example, a farmer gives a shoemaker twenty tubers of yarm for one pair of shoes, a fat goat for a pair of trousers, this was called barter system.  It had a lot of inherent problems.

1.2     OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT

          The objectives of the project work cannot be over emphasized. Objectives of an enterprise information ranges from management planning and control which involves operation of all levels of administrator in an organization. It also aims at improving transaction processing cycle, its objectives tends in achieving a standard financial information such as budgeting system an annual report.

1.2.1  PURPOSE OF STUDY

          This researcher aims at making basis for setting prices or for choosing which capital assets to purchase.  Another purpose of this study is to design a small business enterprise information system that determine the information management requirements and must respond quickly to change on those requirements.

1.3     JUSTIFICATION FOR THE PROJECT

          It justifies us for creating employment opportunities, they offer different apprenticeship training to the unemployed.  Because of the diversity, it promotes economic growth and development, it reduces the waste in the society by using scraps from big firms.  It supplies the masses with the needed goods and service, it also encourages self empowerment.  The OPEC has really helped in the business enterprises of this nation by making sure that Nigeria has full control of her oil resources.  There is increase in commercial activities among member states due to remove of restriction to free trade.

1.4     SCOPE OF THE STUDY

          This project study tends limit this research to the financial information of the business. Financial information is generated directly a by-product of transaction processing.  But, this work does not depend solely on by-product information.  This project tends to considered other factor which are important in the design of effective financial information thereby producing a proper business enterprise information system for implementation.

1.5     METHODOLOGY

          Methodology as the word goes the procedure of research and is perhaps the truth of the research report.  It is also defined as an operational framework within which the facts are placed so that their meaning may be seen more clearly.

There are three types of survey methods namely:

1. Historical method
2. The descriptive method
3. The analytic method

Based on this project the method used is the descriptive survey method where all data were simply observed by the researcher.

THESIS ORGANIZATION

The researcher of this project work went many places to gather some information including from the internet. By oral interview, the researcher visited different departments in the institutions and interviewed staff,  the researcher also went to the  library, school and national library to gather some useful information about the work, lecturers and students also contribute a useful information about the sequence of operations.