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CHAPTER I

Introduction

Information Technology is widely used for faster and easier way of transaction

and communications. It is also used in managing the operation undertaken by the

business. It is a great help to every establishment that undergoes with different

operations. Almost all business firms, computers have significant impact in their works.

People rely on computer for efficient and effective way to handle different loads and

task most especially for business who are working with sales, inventorying as well as

accounting.

Inventory is basically the total amount of goods and materials held in stock by a

factory, store and other business. For a business to be run efficiently it is important that

they keep a record of their inventory as this keeps them informed of when they are

running short of something and need to restock to ensure they can serve their

customers. An inventory system is used for this purpose. An inventory system is

basically a process whereby a business keeps track of the goods and material it has

available. In its simplest sense it can be done manually by a count at the end of each

day. In this way it is possible to keep a record of the goods coming in to the business

and goods being sold. However manual inventory is prone to human error and would be

more time consuming. Besides that, using the manual system will have greater risk of

losing the information since the information is kept in a file. As a solution, this
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computerized system will be developed to solve the problem and provide an effective

way to keeping track items and stocks.

Background of the Study

People prefer searching in internet for different websites than going to the main

shops just for canvassing or choosing for the product they want to buy or purchase.

Everybody wants to see how any product looks like in specific color or upholstery.

So we created this system for the convenience of the costumers of this specific

shop. Not only for the costumer but also for the owners convenient for its easier selling

of the furniture product, saves its time and effort in inventory for the availability of his

furniture products. Having an inventory manually in your product is time consuming and

sometimes having an error on tallying the product. This system automatically counts the

availability of the furniture once the costumers purchase his/her desire furniture.

This system has an ability to control (add/edit/remove) system user accounts,

product management with smart intelligence up selling, discounts management, flexible

shipping charges management, and email marketing and so on, make this system or

website the perfect resource for the furniture industry.

By means of the system/website created, we have been able to reach the

appropriate costumers who as a result of the activity claim to be more likely to purchase

furniture. The costumers will delight to visiting the site because of its convenient but also

the fine furnitures.

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Objectives of the Study

To be able to design and construct a system that will improve and enhance the

furniture management system. This will eliminate or lessen the manual errors of

the system.

To create a system that will lessen the burden of the owner during the inventory

the availability of the product.

To promote fast and reliable transactions to the costumers.

To automatically conduct an inventory of the product.

Scope and Limitations of the Study

The best businesses work as complete units with a shared vision. This may

encompass information sharing, benchmarking, team working and working to the highest

quality and environmental principles. A Furniture Management System helps your

organization to achieve these goals through such things as optimization of processes,

management focus and discipline of management thinking.

Most problems of the business owners are how to manage their business. Because

running your own furniture shop business can be undermined by the very simplest of

problems, your ability to manage and of course the inventory of your product is important

but without an ability to get the best from those around you, and of course yourself. Then

you may be looking at a failure, a costly failure. If you are a business owner and you
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accept your weaknesses then it is very simply to plan a simpler way for you to manage

your furniture shop business.

The first thing a great manager understands is that people are impossible to

manage. To try and take a hands-on approach to every single aspect of managing a

furniture shop business is impossible. The key to a great business is that it will run

without hands-on management.

The focus of the study is a furniture management system. It is one of the scope

and limitation of the study. This study focuses on managing a furniture shop, on how a

furniture management system works. We designed this as a user friendly system because

of the consideration also to the costumer of their easy purchasing of the furniture they

wanted to buy. We made this furniture management system because we all know that due

to inventory of the product availability is quite long due to some problems and believed

that it will help our daily living easy.

The furniture management system is the framework of processes and procedures

used to ensure the business can fulfill all tasks required to achieve its objectives. In this

system the costumer can select the furniture they want to buy, they can canvas to the

product because it has a price in every design of furniture. The costumer has less hassle

when it comes to the shipping of their furniture, because they will only pay an additional

for shipping of the furniture their buy without worrying and safety of the furniture. The

costumer also knows if theres an available stocks of the products before they order. If

the buyer choose their desired style and want to buy for it they will filled-up a form, the

form ask the important information of the buyer.

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Definition of Terms

Access- Refers to the act of connecting to a file, program, or a system to gather

information.

Account- Refers to the representation of an account by a username/email address and a

password to identify a user while on the network or on a computer.

Network- This refers to a collection of computers that are interconnected to facilitate

communication and allow sharing of resources and information among its

interconnected devices.

Online- This term simply indicates a state of connectivity to the worldwide web.

Password- Sequence of characters that must be keyed in to gain access to a system or

program.
System - Refers to a set of interacting components that acts as a whole.
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CHAPTER II

METHODOLOGY

The studies and research applied by the proponents should incorporate the

needs and specifications the system has to accomplish. In designing the proposed system,

it has to consider the visual appearance of its each interface with regards to the users

view, the number of user, the programming language to be used and so on. Prototyping

method of research was used for this study.

It is an excellent way for the development team to confirm understanding of the

requirements and ensure that the proposed solution is consistent with business

expectations.

This covers the first phase in the development of the proposed system, which is

the system planning. In this phase researchers begin with a formal request from the

association that asks for an interview as ground work for the proposed system. The

purpose of this phase is to perform preliminary investigation to identify the nature and

scope of the problem. The preliminary investigation is a critical step where the outcome

will affect the entire development process of the system.

The proponents interviewed the key people of the association, took down notes

and gathered all the data needed for the study. The information gathered gave the

proponents a deeper understanding of the current manual system of the association. From

these, the proponents were able to conceptualize a plan on how the current system could

be improved.
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The next phase is the system analysis phase. This is where the results from the

data gathered are interpreted and analyzed in order to incorporate it to the proposed

system. In this phase a logical model was built for the new system. It used the

requirement modeling where the researchers perused the manual inventory system and

document what the new system hopes to do.

The next stage was the system design phase where the results and analysis of the

data gathered were used. Here an outline that will satisfy all documented requirements for

the system was created. In this stage, system designers used the interface and identified

all the necessary outputs, inputs and processes. In addition, system designers created the

internal and external controls, including computer based and manual features to guarantee

that the system will be accurate, manageable, and secure.

The system implementation phase follows where construction of the new system

is done. This is where the program is written, tested documented and installed. The

objective of the systems implementation is to deliver a completely functional and

documented management system. This is followed by the last phase which is system

operation, support and security; a phase where the system is maintained, enhanced and

protected. Security controls and safeguards for the system from both internal and external

threats are done.

Review of Related Literature and Studies

In this chapter, the proponents will be presenting past published studies, as well as

literature that will rationalize the significance of using the furniture management system.
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Inventory is the most important part in the business. The current problem

observed is the manual inventory which takes a long time to accomplish. Most of the

furniture shops lack of supervision due to the more costumers. Some of them just accept

orders not knowing the availability of the product. According to the manager in the

establishment, because they keep on doing their job manually, it resulted to

disappointments to the costumers that make them to go to other furniture shop.

From the information gathered, the proponents came up with an idea of proposing

a management system that is relevant to the needs of the establishment, highly efficient to

meet their needs and most of all simple, easy to use system. Based on observation and

interview, proponents have found many problems such as time consuming listing the

costumers information to the log book or receipts that errors occurred most of the time.

Furniture Management System is easy-to-use management software that can

manage your furniture shop. Easy to use, track customers and avoid double delivery. No

longer is there a need to close your shop for inventory.

Data Gathering Procedures

Gathering information is prior to developing a system, collecting relevant data is

very essential to provide an informative and effective system that will enable the system

to be user friendly. After collecting the needed information for the proposed system,

other requirements in developing the system is also needed. Since the system is

developed by prototyping, system designing and coding can constantly change according

to the desire of the proponents even before the gathering of data is made. Testing the
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system is made right after it is finish or ready to use. Maintenance is provided for the

update and efficiency of the system.

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CHAPTER III

Answers and Explanation to the Objectives of the Study

Furniture Management System met the objectives of the study. The objectives that

were stated served as the basis in the development of the system and guided the

proponents towards its achievement. To design and construct a system that will improve

and enhance the furniture management system was the main objective of the study.

The proposed system is expected to lessen the burden of the owner during the

inventory the availability of the product. With these, the inventory are directly stored on

the systems database.

The system provides fast and reliable transactions to the costumers can easily

choose their desire furniture with indicated price and they can also know if their desire

furniture is still available.

Results, Explanations and Analysis of the Data Gathered

This covers the first phase in the development of the proposed system, which is

the system planning. In this phase researchers begin with a formal request from the

association that asks for an interview as ground work for the proposed system. The

purpose of this phase is to perform preliminary investigation to identify the nature and

scope of the problem. The preliminary investigation is a critical step where the outcome

will affect the entire development process of the system.

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The proponents interviewed the key people of the association, took down notes

and gathered all the data needed for the study. The information gathered gave the

proponents a deeper understanding of the current manual system of the association. From

these, the proponents were able to conceptualize a plan on how the current system could

be improved.

The next phase is the system analysis phase. This is where the results from the

data gathered are interpreted and analyzed in order to incorporate it to the proposed

system. In this phase a logical model was built for the new system. It used the

requirement modeling where the researchers perused the manual inventory system and

document what the new system hopes to do.

The next stage was the system design phase where the results and analysis of the

data gathered were used. Here an outline that will satisfy all documented requirements for

the system was created. In this stage, system designers used the interface and identified

all the necessary outputs, inputs and processes. In addition, system designers created the

internal and external controls, including computer based and manual features to guarantee

that the system will be accurate, manageable, and secure.

The system implementation phase follows where construction of the new system

is done. This is where the program is written, tested documented and installed. The

objective of the systems implementation is to deliver a completely functional and

documented management system. This is followed by the last phase which is system

operation, support and security; a phase where the system is maintained, enhanced and

protected. Security controls and safeguards for the system from both internal and external

threats are done.

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The Requirements:

XAMPP 1.3.2

Apache 2.0

MySql

PROGRAM DESIGN

The furniture management system we design is user friendly without any

sophisticated features and stuff. The admin pages, where the shop admin can create

categories, add products, add and modify users and easily monitor the stocks quantity

available for selling. The customer page is just part of the system.

File Organization

This how we organize our file in our system:

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The furniture/library directory contains:

config.php : this is the main configuration file for our system

category-functions.php :functions required for fetching the categories

product-functions.php : contain product related functions

cart-functions.php : shopping cart specific functions for the customers page

checkout-functions.php : checkout processes are in here

common.php : common functions required for the customer and admin pages

database.php : contain the database abstraction functions

The furniture/include contains:

header.php: The system common header.

top.php: This where we place our system banner.

footer.php: Common footer, display the address, phone number and email.

leftNav.php: The left navigation you see on the shop

categoryList.php: Show the top categories we have

productList.php: Show the products in certain category

productDetail.php: The detailed description of the furniture is place here.

miniCart.php: Shown on the right portion of the customer pages

shippingAndPaymentInfo.php

The form to enter shipping and payment info ( step 1 of checkout )

checkoutConfirmation.php

Show the order items, shipping & payment info ( step 2 of checkout )
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The furniture/admin folder will contain all the admin files. Admin folder also contain

include and library folder. These will contain specific library files for the admin pages

All images required in our shop will be put in furniture/images directory. The category

and product images are put in the category and product sub-folder respectively.

System Database Design

The database design for our system is quite simple. Below is the summary of

what tables we made for this system plus the short description of each table.

Table Name Description

tbl_category Storing all product categories

tbl_product The products ( what else )

When the customer decided to put

tbl_cart an item into the shopping cart we'll

add the item here

tbl_order This is where we save all orders

tbl_order_item The items ordered

tbl_user Store all admin user account

Contain the shop configuration like

tbl_config name, address, phone number,

email, etc
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The ER ( Entity Relationship ) diagram is shown below.

tbl_config
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Admin Control Panel

Below is the system admin login page (admin/index.php) screen shot.

If the login is successful the Home page is displayed.

Each sub-module (category, product, etc) will have similar file structure. They are:

index.php

list.php
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add.php

modify.php

process<sub-module name>.php

The admin/index.php only serves as a simple display when the admin enters the

administrator section. On this page (and all other pages in the admin sections) we check if

the one requesting the file is already logged in or not. This way we can be sure that

anyone who plays around with the admin pages are those who have the required

permission.

All admin pages will be using the same template so they will all look alike.

Basically each admin file will set the page title, what JavaScript to include and the main

content. If you want to customize the look of the admin pages you only need to modify

the template and the css file (admin.css).

Admin - View Category

All the product categories for the furniture shop are listed here. The sql query for

this is just select category id, parent id and name and using a while loop we show the

category one by one.

Below is the screenshot for the category list page. You can see that on each row

there's a Modify link and Delete link. Clicking on the Modify link will take you to the

category modification page (admin/category/modify.php ) where you can update the

category name, description and image. Clicking on the Delete link will pop a java script
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confirmation box asking whether you are sure to delete the category. Using a

confirmation is a must when you want to delete something. This will prevent stupid

accident where you unknowingly click on the delete link and suddenly the category

disappear before you even realize what's going on. Delete Category: Remove a category.

All products in it will be set to have cat_id = 0. If the product category is no longer active

or available the management has the option to delete the category.

Here is the screen shot of category/index.php

Admin - Add Category

The add category we make is very simple that a user can easily comprehend. Here

the admin can add new furniture category. The information we need are the category

name, description & image. Both the name and description are mandatory but the image

is not, category can be added without an image it can leave it blank.

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Here is the add category screen shot:

Admin - Edit Category

This page is where you can modify a category information. Our form is just a
copy from add.php. The difference is that in this page we need to fetch the category
information first so we can show it in the input boxes. The screen of this is here:

Another difference is that in this form we also display the category image. If changes
made in category image then the old image will be deleted from the server and the new

image is uploaded.
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Admin - View Product

This page list all the products we have. We can see all products or just products

from certain category. From this page we can see the product detail , add new product,

modify and delete.

Below is what the page look like. The table shows the product name, thumbnail,

category, and modify link. The quantity of each furniture stock is also displayed so that it

can easy manage and monitored. We show the product image if it exist. In case we

haven't supply the image the default image is shown instead.

There's a javascript function called viewProduct() attached to the combo box on the top

right portion of the page. If you select a category then the page will show product list

only from that category

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Admin - Add Product

Adding a product for the furniture shop is a straightforward process. Just enter the

product information and hit the 'Add Product' button. When adding a product we will

requires category, product name, description, price quantity in stock and image. All is

mandatory except for the image. We can add the product image. The add product form

look like this:

Not much difference from the add category form. We just have more input box.

On top of the form you can see the category combo box. We build this so that you can

only select the second level category. This is to ensure that all furniture are added on the

second level category and not put in the top level category by mistake.
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If you happen to click the "Add Product" button while viewing the product list in

a category you can see that the category list is pre-selected to the right category. When

the function is building the list options it always check if the current category id is the

same as the category id in the function parameter.

The product quantity is limited to 65,535 since in the table definition we only use

smallint(5) . I find this number adequate for most online shops. But if do carry more than

that amount for an item just change the data type to something bigger like mediumint(8).

The product image you need to supply is the large size product image which will

be shown in the product detail page. The script will generate a thumbnail for it to be

shown in the product browsing page. We define the maximum image size and the

thumbnail size in config php.

We to restrict the image size so it won't destroy the out layout. Imagine if the

image is 1000 pixels wide and 2000 pixels high. It will make the product detail page look

awful. Image resizing can be turned on or off. If you set LIMIT_PRODUCT_WIDTH to

false on config.php the script will just upload the image without worrying about it's size.

It's not recommended though. Our design can only handle jpeg and gif image.

Admin - Edit Product

We have here modify product link same as modifying category. We show the

form where we can change the product information. Display the image thumbnail if the

product has an image and put a delete link right next to it.
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The process of updating the product information is also the same as the category.

Admin - Order Management

All customer order will be shown here. You can see the orders and take

appropriate action. For example all orders initially have the status "New". When you pack

the product and ship it to the customer you can then change the order status to "Shipped".

The order status are :

New: all orders initially have this status.

Paid: An order's status is changed from "New" to "Paid" after completing the

payment process.

Shipped: After we pack the ordered furnitures and ship it we can change the order

status to "Shipped"
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Completed: We got the payment, the customer received the furniture that means

the order is completed

Cancelled: In some case a customer cancelled ordered.

The order page has view order & modify order. The View Orders, here we can

see all the orders we have and their status. When you click the "Order" link on the left

navigation you will go straight to the "Paid" orders. The reason is that the management

can prioritized the customer who already paid their purchased furniture

Modify Orders: Sometimes a customer might contact us saying that she made

the wrong order like specifying the wrong product quantity or simply want her order

cancelled so she can repeat the buying process again. This page enables the admin to do

such a thing.

Below is the order/index.php screen shot:

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Admin System Configuration

Below is system config/index.php screen shot.
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Admin - User Management

A user of the shop is actually the shop admin itself. We make all user are granted

the permission to do all administration task such as managing the products or managing

the orders, etc. The view user list can display all user of the system like the below snap

shot.

Add User

The only information needed are the user name and password.
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Modify User Password

For simplicity the user name cannot be changed. Only the password can be changed. The

function used for modifying the password simply perform an UPDATE query to update

the password

Furniture Store - Main Page

This page is usually what the customers see for the first time when visiting our

furniture shop. It consists of five parts. On the left is the category browser. They can click

here way through categories to find the product. The right side is where we put the mini

shopping cart. If the visitors add a product, this mini cart will show the item. At the very

top and bottom are the common header and footer. The top area is usually where we put

our store logo. For this system the bottom area is used for displaying the store

information (address, email, phone )

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The center part is the main area. Here we show the product categories and

products. The customer will ( hopefully ) find her way through the this, find the item she

want, put it into the shopping cart and then buy.

What we show in the main area depends on the customer action. When customers
browse to main page she get the category list. If the customers click on one of the
category then we show the product list for that category. And if they click on a product
from the list we show the product detail. Here is the screen shot of the furniture shop
main page:
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Shop - View Product List

When you click one of the categories from the left navigation the main content

area will show all product contained in that category.

Furniture_Shop - View Product Detail

When you click on one of the product from the product list the product detail page

will show up. For each product we display the full-sized image, name, price and 'Add to

cart' button. When you want to customize this page remember NOT to change the button

to 'Buy Now' because the customer may not ready to buy yet.
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Here is the snapshot of the product detail page. We have full size image on top

left corner, the description at the bottom, then the product name, price and an 'Add To

Cart' button on the right

No weird stuff here it so simple because we must be consistent to our vision of

making our system simple and friendly to the user. There's one more important thing

about the 'Add To Cart' button. We only show this if we still have this product in stock.

After we run out of this product we just display 'Out Of Stock' . Here is the code snippet

from include/productDetail.php

Shop - Add To Cart

When clicking on the 'Add To Cart' button on the product detail page you will be

redirected to the shopping cart page.

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Since we have action=add in the query string the addToCart() function will be

called. In short the function will do these :

1. Check if the product exist in database

2. Check if we still have this product in stock ( quantity > 0 )

3. If the product is already in cart increase the quantity

4. If not add the product to cart

The addToCart() function is located in library/cart-functions.php.

Furniture Shop - View Shopping Cart

The shopping cart interface is made more simple. Studies have shown that

removing any distraction from the shopping cart page ( and from the checkout pages too )

can lead to higher conversion rates. So for this page the left navigation is removed, the

mini cart display is also gone.

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If the customer come to this page and the shopping cart is still empty there is a

chance that she go there by accident or feeling confused. So now we present her with

simple instruction on how to buy stuff in our furniture shop .

"Your shopping cart is empty"

Now if there are already items in the cart we present it to the customer like shown below.

Each row shows the product thumbnail name, unit price, quantity and sub-total. On each

row we have a delete button so the customer can easily remove the item. If you plan to

customize the shopping cart interface do not remove the delete button. It will make the

delete process difficult for the customer and it certainly not a good thing.

Here is the screen shot of viewing customer chosen furniture, where customer can add

and delete her choice item:

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Shop - Checkout

There are three steps to complete the checkout

1. Fill out the shipping and payment info

2. Confirm the ordered items, shipping and payment info and enter the payment
method.

Save the order information to the database. If the payment method is COD ( cash on

delivery ) go straight to the thank you page.

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CHAPTER IV

Summary

The proposed system entitled Furniture Management System aims to lessen the

burden of the owner during the inventory the availability of the product, give a fast and

reliable transactions to the costumers and automatically conduct an inventory of the

product. The administrator has full access to the system. The system checks upon the

logging in of the administrator for authenticity. Upon logging in to the system the

administrator can add, edit, delete and view the products, it is automatically saved on the

database as well.

Conclusion and Justification

After days of analysis, development and implementation, our proposed system has

been a success. It has attained its objective and even proved out more. The systems

efficiency has been proved through conducting a dry-run on the furniture shop using the

proposed system.

The burden of the owner has been lessen for an automatic inventory of the

product is done by the system, it reduces the time consumed on inventory and listing

information of the costumer. Thus, with the use of the furniture management system, the

workload and manual errors are likely to diminish and will produce an accurate

availability of the product.

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Recommendation

These are the following revisions made and complied according to the stated

recommendations of the panelists:

The delete button should not be placed because the integrity of the database will

be affected.

Improving the documentation