Synopsis: A discussion of migrating a document formatted businesses to an integrated program and database flow.
As a suggested prerequisite, before reading the Programming series, review the post under menu title Material Handling, Concept of Material Handling. The intent of the blog is not to discuss programming specifics, like tools, function, subroutines, or code, but to go over goal-oriented programming development. This theme may be material handling, but the concepts are widely goal applicable.
Starting from ground level, there were discussions on the programing structure, though the goal was to transfer purchased project material into the bookkeeping software. Administration reviewed a number of accounting software options that would align with the business project-based work structure. Eventually, ComputerEase (CE) was selected.
ComputerEase is a contractor bookkeeping package which has a very good group of work accountability programs and all the programs an accountant could dream of needing. However, in an organization focused to keep costs minimized, the cost for seats was kept at a minimum. In the beginning there appeared to be no method to import material or labor hours as everything was manually entered. In order to maintain the business production format, purchase orders (PO) and labor hours were manually entered. Since 2006, CE has greatly expanded functionality.
In the initial programming development stages, the primary task was to transfer PO data into CE to reduce the labor involved with manually transferring PO data.
The case could be argued on why it was considered a necessity to transfer all material from a PO instead of just creating a single line item with the PO total. The reasoning was project accountability and accuracy.
Moving on with the development, the decision was to use a SQL database, Visual Basic program language, and Crystal Reports (CR) to achieve the objective of PO to CE. In 2008 the process to import purchase orders into the CE OBDE database was possible from third-party software. Then a few years later there was a disruption in the transfer process. In discussions with CE, we were informed that the new administration would no longer permit third-part software to write to their database. At that time CE advised us that there was a PO import routine, from a spreadsheet, for CE project material updating.
Around 2008, the fax machine was a popular method to electronically transmit a purchase order. Online ordering was still an infant and credit cards were often used for purchases where Net Terms were not established. The ability to add attachments to emails, such as a pdf PO was a method to remove the tedious task of standing at the fax machine and hoping the process from sending to receiving and confirming the recipient supplier had received the purchase order was an add-on as programming developed.
From the initial concept to the final and still developing process of purchasing and accounting, the effort to reduce redundant labor also provided personnel with project material status. To date, the material handling package has evolved from five programs to fifteen programs with a host of small supporting programs.
The following posts will review techniques used in programming and SQL database administration.
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