Online booking system
computers are often used to book (reserve) air flights, seats in the cinema, rooms in a hotel, tables in a restaurant, etc.
In all of the above examples, there are a limited number of items (seats on a plane, rooms in a hotel, etc.) which need to be allocated.
It is very important that any booking system prevents the same item being booked twice (double-booking).
So How do Booking Systems Work?
If we were talking about a single, small cinema, where you had to queue up to buy tickets at the front door, the reservation system would be very simple: We could just use a piece of paper and tick off seats as they were reserved.
However, most booking systems are much more complex than this. A typical booking system must cope with booking requests from many different sources, all arriving at the same time. For example, flights can be booked by customers online, by travel agents in dozens of different offices, by businesses, etc.
How do booking systems manage all these bookings without making any double-bookings?
All Booking Systems are Real-Time
The Key to all booking systems is the fact that they are real-time systems.
A real-time system is one where every input is processed immediately, so that the resulting output is ready before the next input is processed.
In the case of a booking system…
The inputs are booking requests
The processing involves checking if bookings are possible, and if so making the bookings
The outputs are booking confirmations / rejections
Because a booking system is real-time, when a booking request arrives, the previous booking has already been fully processed. This is what prevents double-booking.
An Example…
Imagine that two people are using an airline’s website to try and book seats on a flight. Both people try to book seat 38C and the same time…
Even though the booking requests are made at the same time, one request will be received by the airline’s computer just before the other (since requests come into the system through a ‘queue’)
This is what happens:
Input: Please reserve seat 38C
Process: Has seat 38C already been booked? No… so book it
Output: Booking confirmed for seat 38C
Input: Please reserve seat 38C
Process: Has seat 38C already been booked? Yes!
Output: Booking rejected
You can see that the first input is fully processed before the next one. So seat 38C doesn’t get booked twice.
What is pay roll ?
The ‘payroll’ of a business is the system used to calculate the salary (how much they are paid for their work) of each employee.
The inputs to a payroll system are:
Employee code (used to lookup the employee’s other details, e.g. name, bank account, etc.)
Hours worked
Rate of pay (e.g. $25 per hour)
The processing involves the following calculation:
Pay = Hours Worked X Rate of Pay
The outputs from a payroll system are:
A printed payslip (given to the employee to show how his/her pay was calculated)
A cheque, or an EFT payment directly into the employee’s bank account
Many places of work automatically record hours worked by the employees using systems such as swipe-cards or fingerprint readers.
When an employee arrives at work, they swipe their ID card, and then do the same when they leave.
Hours worked = Time out – Time in
Sometimes money may be added on to a person’s pay (e.g. for working extra ‘overtime’)
Sometimes pay is taken away (e.g. as tax, or health insurance payments.
How is a Payroll Processed?
The payroll is usually processed once a week or once a month (depending upon how often the business pays its employees).
This means that batch-processing is ideal for payroll processing:
Working hours data is collected into a batch
The data can be processed in one go at the end of the week/month
The same calculations will be performed on all the data
No user input is required during the processing
The processing can be done during quiet times when the computer system is not being used for other things (e.g. at night)
Billing systems
Our Electricity Customer Care and Billing (CC&B) is a solution we deploy to customers that have the following profile qualities;
Have arrangements with the likes of AEMO or similar market systems
Run a utility company that retails electricity to residential and or commercial and industrial customers
You hold a valid license to Sell electricity at Retail
Require a platform that enables you to manage all customer interactions including;
Maintaining Customer information
Customer sign ups online or over the phone
Move in and move outs
Customer enquiries regarding billing and payments , rate cards
Bill presentation on line with itemised breakdown
Bill presentation by post or PDF
Payment platforms including
Pay by phone
Pay over the counter (eg Australia Post)
Pay online with Credit Card
Direct Debit from credit card
Direct Debit from Bank Account
Tokenised payments
SMS Payment confirmations
Notifications to customers
SMS
Post
Online
Reporting requirements including
NEM Reports
Aged Recs
Margin analysis
Bad debt reports
Sales and Churn reports
Ombudsman reports and more
What is Stock Control?
Every business needs to keep track of the items that it manufactures or sells (the stock). The system that monitors the items in stock is called the stock control system.
E.g. in a store, the stock includes all of the items on the shelves and out the back in the storeroom.
It is important that a business does not keep too much stock, nor too little.
Too much stock costs money as you have to store it all somewhere
Too much perishable stock (e.g. food) means that it may go bad before it is sold
Too little stock means that you might run out of stock before the next delivery arrives
Data in a Stock Control System
A stock control system is basically a database.
Each record (row) of the database is identified by an item code (the primary key).
Other fields in each record would include:
Description
Item price
Stock level (the number of items held in stock)
Minimum stock level (when stock falls below this, it needs to be reordered)
Reorder quantity (how many items we should order each time)
Receiving New Stock
When items are added in to stock (because a delivery has arrived) this is recorded in the stock control system.
The code of the new items is input to the system (usually using a barcode scanner, or similar technology). The record for the item is found in the stock database, or a new record is created, and the stock level is increased.
In many stores, the POS system is directly linked to the stock control system, so that stock levels are adjusted as soon as an item is sold.
Selling / Delivering Stock
When items are taken from stock (because they have been sold, or delivered somewhere) this is recorded in the stock control system.
The code of the item is being sold/delivered is input to the system (usually using a barcode scanner, or similar technology). The record for the item is found in the stock database, and the stock level is decreased.
In many stores, the POS system is directly linked to the stock control system, so that stock levels are adjusted as soon as an item is sold.
Automatic Re-Ordering of Stock
Stock control systems make it very easy for stock levels to be monitored, and for stock to be reordered when it is running low.
The stock control system regularly goes through all the records in the stock database and checks if the stock level is less than the minimum stock level.
Is Stock Level < Minimum Stock Level ?
If the stock is too low, it is reordered from the supplier. The quantity that is ordered is read from the stock database (larger amounts for more popular items)
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