IT Business Applications Week 7 Sales and Marketing Data

Sales & Marketing Data This presentation largely consists of an examination of a Billing System which can be used for capturing data directly from business forms and statements The main purpose in creating such an ‘automation system’, is to create efficiencies; for example we can store data from an invoice and pull the data back into a receipt. Another very important reason for storing data in this manner, is that it provided important information about sales, in a form which is very useful. We can, for example use it to create summaries and Pivot Tables. In addition, if the data is stored in the correct form, it can provide us with data about customers’ purchases, which can be extremely useful for marketing purposes.

Contents The Billing System Contextualising the System Criticisms of the System

The Billing System

Billing System Example This section of the presentation introduces you to a small application which can be adapted to use in a small business. In its simplest terms, the application does the following: Allows the user to create an invoice Stores the information to a database Reads data from the database to create a receipt.

Billing System Example Open up the Billing System Workbook now. You will need to enable the Macros. You should work through the tasks, ensuring that you have a clear understanding of what the software is doing. Action

Logo and Address can be adapted for use in different contexts. Billing System Logo and Address can be adapted for use in different contexts. Currently this is set up as an invoice, but this can be altered. Billing System Function Buttons

Title and Logo Amended For use with an actual company, it will be necessary to amend the title bar, and the logo. In this example, the Invoice has been adapted for use with the WssW company. We will now enter some data.

Enter Data Enter the following data into the Invoice. You will need to enter your own name, address & tel. no. Enter the date Enter Data In this section, enter the quantity, description & unit price only.

Capturing the Data Click on the button “Save invoice data to Database” This dialogue box appears, and provides you with an opportunity to check, and if necessary modify the data. When you are satisfied the data is OK, save the data to database and onto the disk.

The Database Click on the ‘Database’ Tab at the foot of the workbook. The data that you have entered should appear here as the bottom line (10)

Searching the Database Click on the ‘Search & Modify Database’ Button Using the arrows, you can scroll through the database. This provides you with a rudimentary search function.

Modifying the Database Scroll through to item 10 Now edit the text in some way, e.g. change the name or the address. Now save the database with the new details by clicking on this button.

Check the Database You should check that the database has in fact responded to the changes you have made.

Creating Receipts Select ‘Receipt’ by clicking on this button. This dialogue box appears. You can scroll through the database to select the particular item required.

Receipt Issued Selecting ‘Create Receipt’ brings the information from the database back into the form, and changes it from an invoice to a receipt.

Database Modification The act of creating the receipt records the fact that the customer has now paid.

Contextualising the Billing System

How might this system be used? The system is designed to facilitate a simple billing and payment system that does the following: Customers order goods by phone or by post. An invoice is created which is sent to the customer. The sale is recorded. The customer returns the invoice with their payment.This payment is recorded. A Receipt is created, and sent to the customer. Records can be inspected, summarised and collated for other purposes , e.g Marketing!

Criticisms of the System

Critical Evaluation of the System The Billing System has many positive features It is simple to use It provides ready-made templates It keeps automatic records of transactions However it has many weaknesses. Can you identify some of these?

Critical Evaluation Not all data on the invoice is saved to the database. Valuable information is lost on each transaction Customer data for repeated transactions would have to be re-entered on each occasion; this is inefficient and also mean that names might be entered differently on different occasions, making tracking of customers difficult. The data on the receipt only records the total, and not the individual sales items There is no real search facility on the database, other than scrolling through. If we had 1000 items this would be unwieldy.

Improvements (1) Another major criticism would be that the invoice might not be suitable for a particular company, and the way that the system is constructed would make it very difficult to amend it. This issue will be addressed in Formative Activity 6, where you will encounter a more general version of the billing system which gives you literally carte-blanche to create your own data entry form, but provides you with mechanisms for storing and searching through data.

Improvements (2) Further improvements to the system can be made, but these will need to wait until we have encountered more techniques. Later in the course we examine ways in which the data entry form can be made more user-friendly. However, the main set of improvements will have to wait until we can explore some of the VBA forms and coding which underlie the Billing system.

Improvements (3) One Improvement which we can make is to the way that VAT operates within the form itself. If you open up ‘Billing System VAT” you will see that the Invoice is set up in Cell M38 to allow three different applications of Value Added Tax Version 1, M38 = “none” - VAT is ignored Version 2 , M38 = “included” – VAT is included in the original price. This version ‘back calculates what the original price would have been without the VAT. Version 3, M38 = “added” – VAT is added onto the price quoted.