Online accounts management for small businesses By Wagner Silva – – Abstract: This project demonstrates the steps taken to develop small business accounts software using various open source technologies including PHP, mySql and JavaScript, whilst also taking a step further in PHP development by implementing object oriented techniques combined with traditional structural programming. The application developed here aims at very small businesses which have been neglected by main software development companies that offer packages with complexities which are not necessary unless they are being used by an accountant. An effort has also been made to make this system as international as possible by avoiding the use of localized tax terms and making it multi-lingual. The language facilities offered by this system are also extended by the fact that the business running the application might be trading in one language, whilst their client speaks another, this is something that has also been addressed by the system. Because the program developed during this project is online it has benefited by levels of automation that would not be possible by standalone desktop applications such as client self management facilities, invoice payment management, and the completely unassisted processing of recurring items. The main goal for this system is to take the accountancy complexities away, and give small business owners an easy to use, yet powerful tool to manage customer accounts whilst also offering some level of CRM functionality. Problems: Overall complexity of existing software packages. Existing packages are highly dependent on the business owners to interact with the system, offering poor autonomy. Clients may not pay for invoices promptly and that increases the general cost of running the business. With standard desktop packages it is not possible to enable clients to self-manage their accounts. Every business nowadays need to accept credit/debit cards and that should be coupled with the invoicing system. Need to interact with clients that don’t necessary speak our language. Need to expand into new markets. Solutions: Web easy invoice is more than just an online accounts package, it enables the business to do manage their accounts and client relationship from a single location taking a more automated approach. Web easy invoice helps small businesses by: Simplifying financial reports and avoiding the use of jargons whenever possible. Because it is online, the business desktop does not need to be started in order of the application to run, in fact it is running 24/7, and by using Linux Cron jobs it performs various automation procedures without any user input. It will clients invoices when they are due, chase for payments, and collect it online via PayPal. Client’s can updated their profile online and in the future they will be able to order or cancel existing services. It is multilingual using a separate communication channel for the business and their clients. Because it is online businesses can start expanding into new markets right away. Next steps This software will probably evolve into a business but for that to happen a more professional GUI will need to be designed, also more functionality will be added to the system such as better record of online transactions and an e-commerce plug in. Techniques used To develop this application object oriented PHP was used applying the MVC design pattern. Also other standard open source development languages were used such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript using Jquery libraries. The database choose for this project has been the open source mySql database. Due to its robustness and for the simple fact of being free to use without any unreasonable functionality restrictions.