1.

Title of the project

Development of an online Sales and Inventory Management System (SIMS)

2. Objective of the program

This project is aimed at developing an online Sales and Inventory Management System (SIMS)
for a departmental store. This system can be used to store the details of the inventory, update the
inventory based on the sale details, produce receipts for sales, generate sales and inventory reports
periodically etc.

3. Project Category

MySQL Database

4. Language(s) to be used

PHP

5. Structure of the program

This is one integrated system that contains both the user component (used by salespersons, sales
managers inventory managers etc) and the admin component (used by the administrators for
performing admin level functions such as adding new items to the inventory, changing the price of an
item etc). This system runs on multiple terminals, offers a GUI interface to its users and connects to a
common database(s).

 change the password after logging into the system

 see the status of the inventory, i.e., whether a particular item is available or not etc

 search for a particular item by typing the initial letters (‘app’ for example may bring up
the item ‘apple’ in the top) or by category-wise (apple, for example, may be looked up
by going through the category ‘fruits’)

 enter the items purchased by a customer and produce a bill for the same (the bill will
have a unique sale id, date, time, item/quantity/price details etc)

 cancel the produced bill, in case of error in entering the details, and produce a new one

 take back an already sold item that is not satisfactory to the customer (the shop allows
that) and produce a receipt for the same
  inform the inventory manager about the items that are not available, so that they can
be stocked

 inform the sales manager about any exceptions (such as an item is being purchased, but
it is not available in the system)

 get help about the system on how to use the different features of the system

2. The inventory manager should be able to

 login to the system/change his password after logging in etc

 check the status of the inventory

 see the reports from sales people about items that are not available and need to be
kept in the inventory

 validate the inventory against the sales done in the previous day (whether the items
that are sold and the change in the inventory for the corresponding items match etc)

 generate inventory reports of the items category-wise, price-wise etc

 generate inventory-trends (like how is coffee powder stock changing over the month)

Functional components of the project

Following is a list of functionalities of the system. More functionalities that you find appropriate can be
added to this list. And, in places where the description of a functionality is not adequate, you can make
appropriate assumptions and proceed.

There are registered people in the system (sales people working in the shop, inventory managers, admin
et al). Each one of them may have some exclusive privileges (admin, for example, could create new users
to the system whereas sales people cannot).
 3. A sales person should be able to

 login to the system through the initial screen of the system

 login to the system/change his password after logging in etc

 check how many bills have been generated in the day so far

 check how much money is transacted in the day so far

 check how many bills have been cancelled so far in the day(due to wrong entry by the sales
persons)

 check how many items have been returned so far in the day

 check for any exception reports from the sales persons and correct it by contacting the
inventory manager

 generate sales-trend graphs for each of the item (like how is apple selling in the last one
month)

5. The administrator should be able to

 login to the system and change his password after logging in

 add new users to the system

 add new items/categories to the inventory (‘grape’ may be added to the category ‘fruits’
or a new category such as ‘vegetables’ may be added)

 change the price of an item

Steps to start-off the project

1. Study and be comfortable with technologies such as Java/Visual Basic, SQL server/MS-Access
etc. Some links to these technologies are given in the ‘Guidelines and References’ section of this
document

2. Make a database of items/categories

3. Make a list of sales persons/managers/administrator who would be using the system

4. Create the front-page of the system giving a brief description about the system and a login box

5. Create the help-pages of the system in the form of Q&A. This will help you also when
implementing the system

6. Create other sub-systems like error notification, screens for various functions (like purchase,
cancellation, return of items, admin pages etc)

Requirements

Hardware requirements

Number Description

1 PC with 2 GB hard-disk and

2 Keyboard and mouse

Software requirements
Number Description

1 Windows 95/98/XP with MS-

2 PHP

3 MySQL