This article addresses issues related to the initial setup of an automated business accounting system. Often, vendors of such systems barely explain the importance of properly setting up the program for operation.

This article is devoted to issues related to the initial preparation of an automated accounting system for business. Often, sellers of such systems hardly explain how important it is to properly prepare the program for work.

They also keep silent about the fact that an impeccably designed product catalog and correctly entered information about suppliers, clients, and employees directly and immediately affect the quality of use of the accounting system. Preparing the program for operation is the most difficult and time-consuming stage of automation. It will take only 5-7 days to deliver and set up the computer and trading equipment. But, for example, how long will it take you to enter your product range into the program? Let's assume you have about 5,000 product items. Let's imagine that they will be handled by one specially trained, intelligent operator who is well versed in computers and the nuances of accounting. We will also assume that entering one product item will take him only 1 minute. So, let's calculate?

The calculation is simple: 5,000 items x 1 min. = 5,000 minutes, which is approximately 84 hours.

It turns out that if the operator works from bell to bell the whole working day, it will take him 84 hours / 8 = 11 working days. And mind you, this was nonstop!

Keep in mind that this was the ideal scenario. In reality, everything will be much slower: after all, the operators are not so literate, and they will not be able to work continuously, and the lack of a systematic approach to entering information will cause numerous errors. In reality, the period for preparing an automated accounting system for operation increases by one and a half times, and this leads to unnecessary fuss when opening a new store or restaurant. And as a result, customers and visitors are dissatisfied, salespeople and waiters are irritated, the festive mood is spoiled.

This situation is very well characterized by such words as "opening in emergency mode." You can avoid a rush job, but to do this you need to work on several areas of preparation in parallel and systematize the input of primary data.

Parallelization of the preparation process

You have already chosen a program for automating accounting, decided on the retail equipment and made an advance payment. What do they offer you after that?

• Equipment delivery within 5-7 days.
• Equipment installation at the retail outlet in 1-3 days.

At the same time, no one will tell you how much time it will take to prepare the accounting system and enter primary information. As already mentioned, in the best case scenario, it will take 11 working days.

This means that your retail outlet will open only in 17-25 days. That is, it will bring in almost no income for a month, despite the fact that it is almost completely ready for operation. If this suits you, you can stop reading. Well, if not, we suggest finding out how to painlessly reduce preparation times.

In general, it looks like this. Organize two simultaneous processes - purchasing retail equipment and entering primary information. We will help your employees correctly enter the primary information and check its accuracy. And when the equipment is delivered and installed, the accounting system will be 80-90% ready.

A simple calculation will show that parallel execution of two processes: purchasing equipment and preparing the program - will reduce the time to open a retail outlet to 10-15 days instead of 17-25. How about such savings?

A systematic approach to entering primary information

The most routine, but at the same time responsible task is entering reference information into the program, that is, the names of goods (services) and prices at which you You are going to sell them.

You buy an empty accounting system - except for the operating logic, there is nothing in it. No one will sell you a program that would contain your product catalog and a list of suppliers. Any tricks like, "let's take someone else's database and copy it to ours," will bring nothing but a headache. Because these will not be your products and not your prices, the list will invariably include products that you do not sell at all, which will lead to complete confusion.

This happens. A client decided to automate the accounting system of a grocery store. He had a huge product range, there were no operators - one accountant. The client did not want to hire an additional employee for the operator position, so he assigned the accountant to enter the product catalog. On the very first day, it became clear that this process would drag on for a long time. The store owner came with a request to download him a product catalog from any large supermarket. As a result, he was loaded with a product database of 53,000 items.

Then the store owner and accountant were repeatedly told that all product items needed to be checked, all prices, and unnecessary items removed. Unfortunately, human error played a role. They were only able to perform a superficial check, after which the store returned to work.

Negligence, of course, was bound to backfire: unpleasant phenomena were not long in coming. The accountant failed to enter incoming invoices into the database and monitor selling prices on time. Products were displayed on the shelves without being recorded as inventory, but since the program contained product and price data, they were still sold, albeit not at the store's actual prices. Sometimes it reached the point of absurdity: selling prices were lower than purchasing prices, and no one cared! Low price tags were printed, the goods were swept off the shelves, and the store failed to make a profit.

The conclusion is simple: never rely on others, control the entry of product information personally. It is better to work harder at the beginning than to figure out later why the store is not making a profit.

Data on products, suppliers, and employees must be properly systematized so that all program users understand them clearly and can find them easily.

Which product to work with, how to name it correctly, what product groups to combine it into - no one but you can decide this.

Below are a few simple rules, the implementation of which will allow you to build a convenient and understandable structure of directories.

Rule No. 1: When creating product cards, adhere to a uniform naming system. Define your own product naming scheme for the entire range.

One example is a scheme in which the name of a product/service consists of three components.

[Manufacturer] [Product name] [Clarifying characteristics (color, volume, packaging, etc.)]. If any of the components of the name is unknown, it is omitted.

Examples:

• Khortitsa Silver Vodka 0.7 l
• Potato soup 200 ml
• Slavutich Light Beer bottle 0.5 l
• Milk Doctor Ukrainian Milk 2.5% 1.0 l
• Crimean Rose Potatoes
• Sliced ​​Loaf

Any product naming scheme should be tailored to your needs. If you are a manufacturer and have no idea of ​​the manufacturing company, there is no point in including this characteristic in the product name. In this case, the scheme could be like this:

[Product name] [Clothing type (men's/women's)] [Age group (children's/teens'/adults') [Size] [Specifying characteristics].

Ignoring this requirement will not end well. You risk entering the same product under different names. Say: “Women's Libro tights size 46 black” and “Women's Libro tights size 46 black”. Even though you know that these are the same thing, the program considers these items as different products.

Rule # 2:Product names should not be repeated.

It often happens that employees create products with the same name in different product groups. It would seem like a small thing, but the consequences can be serious. Operators and When conducting inventory transactions, accountants select some items, although in fact others are needed. And all because none of them even suspects that two identical cards exist. As a result, it turns out that one item was received, and another is sold. One item is always in the plus, and the other in the minus. This cannot be allowed.

Rule # 3: Group items sensibly.

Both the number of groups and their nesting should facilitate quick finding of the item, that is, clearly indicate its location.

Here is a simple example of the arrangement of groups:

Alcohol         Brandy, Absinthe, Whiskey
Vodka
Georgian wines
Crimean wines
Cognacs
Dairy       Milk
Kefir, fermented baked milk
Sour cream
Yogurts
Beer                  Sarmat
Slavutich
Obolon

If you create many nested groups, such a directory will be difficult to use. You will have to search in many groups to get to the required position. So the optimal number of nestings is 2-4  level.

Try not to create products in the root directory folder. At the very least, because they are often forgotten.