ICT DESIGN
...ject. While there are many accounting packages available such as sage, they are very expensive costing over £100 and are not suited to an a-level students requirements. I propose to create a system that will calculate the three types of account. It will follow a set of instructions, which will form an algorithm to calculate the accounts when provided with the necessary details. I have included in the appendix-III the general layout of these three types of account. They all follow a relatively similar layout. Because of this I should be able to create one algorithm and then adapt it three different ways to achieve my goal. The layout and form of input will require the most attention, as it must be adaptable to which ever way the data is given, be it straight figures or percentages. The system must also be able to take into account or include a way to input additional notes that are often provided with accounting questions. I have several options to create this system. The most obvious occurred to me while I was reading through the layout of an account. Part of the layout read: - ADD opening profit LESS closing stock This reminded me of pseudeocode and the programming language BASIC. It would be easy to replicate instructions such as the ones above and create a program in BASIC taking input, processing it and giving a output. However BASIC as the name suggests is basic, and so also looks very basic. While it could be used to create a effective program, it would be hard to produce a attractive and appealing interface, thus making it difficult for many people to use and operate. My second option is Microsoft access. This is a 4GL, a fourth generation language. A 4GL basically means that it is a purpose built program that asks you what to do, but not how to do it. I would choose Microsoft access over other 4GLs such as Star Office, and Corel Office as it also allows Visual Basic code to be included in the program, thus making it very flexible. My final option would be to use another suitable programming language to code the system from scratch. The most obvious choice would be Visual Basic, like BASIC it is easy to use and create programs with, however it also has the advantage of providing tools to create a very attractive interface, for a user to interact with, thus enabling most students to be able to operate a program with ease. Other programming languages such as Delphi and C++ could also be used to create a similar system, however these languages can be more complicated and difficult to program in which results in difficulty when it comes to debugging. The advantage of using Visual basic rather than MS access is that it would do away with a lot of Accesses features which are not required and will only complicate the system. However in this case I feel that MS access would be the most suitable option as it retains the flexibility of Visual basic, while doing away with the timeless task of coding and debugging a program from scratch. Objectives of the proposed system. As with all projects there are certain objectives I expect my system to be able to meet. The accuracy should be improved dramatically as the computer will be responsible for carrying out all calculations. This is a top priority as early mistakes can lead to others due to one calculation relying on the result of...