School System

I. Introduction

In this chapter, the researchers would like to propose an automated billing system in AMA Computer Learning Center (ACLC) College of Gapan City, Nueva Ecija. In our generation so many things are different. The advent of technology has changed the way we live, work and spends leisure time. Computer was considered the lifeblood of society; they are everywhere. And the advancement in discoveries, both in hardware and software, keep coming, day in and day out.

Technology changes and improves at a rapid pace and companies and institutions have cope with it.

This is because as the latest knowledge of development in computer technology grows people’s standard increase. They seek and crave for better and more efficient ways to accomplish tedious task. The group of Companies was built upon the dream of the late Amable M. Aguiluz Sr. (AMA), Auditor General and National Treasurer during the term of President Diosdado Macapagal, to build an institution that would provide world-class education to Filipino y0uth.

To meet the growing demand for computer courses, AMACC established its first campus in Makati in 1983. A second campus followed in 1986 in project 8, Quezon City. In 1987, AMA Computer Learning Center (ACLC) was established to offer short courses in computer programming and two-year technical vocational courses. Today, there are today more than 100 learning centers nationwide. In the same year, AMA Basic Education was formed to offer courses elementary, high school and eventually pre-school education. Now known as the St. Augustine International School, its branches are located in Metro Manila, Laguna, Cebu, and Davao. In 1996, AMA set up the AMA Telecommunications and Electronics Learning Center (AMATEL) – the country’s first-ever telecommunications school. It is now called AMA International Institute of Technology (AIIT).

In 1998, ABE International Business was established to offer courses in Hotel and Restaurant Management (HRM), Business Administration and computer-related courses. Today, ABE has several branches nationwide. ABE is an international school affiliated with ABE in the United Kingdom. It offers not just local, but also international diploma and international practicum program. The AMA school network also expanded overseas with branches in Los Angeles, California; Manama; Bahrain; Bangladesh; China; and Hong Kong. In 2000, AMAES launched its most ambitious expansion program with no less than 14 branches being set up nationwide.

To help it graduates finds employment, AMA established in the same year its own manpower placement agency called INFOTECH Professional Services Inc. The year 2002 saw AMA expanding into maritime education, medicine, nursing, care-giving and allied health courses. Now, the Norwegian maritime Academy (NMA), the AMA school of Medicine (ASM), and the St. Augustine School of Nursing (SASN) are making a mark in their respective fields with IT-based curricula. AMA Education System (AMAES) – the umbella for AMA schools, currently boasts of more than 200 branches nationwide and in key foreign cities.

It has proudly produced more than 150,000 professionals who have been gainfully employed locally and overseas. On August 20, 2002, AMA was granted University status by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) – a well-earned tribute to the first ISO-certificated computer educational Institution in the Philippines. Founding Chairman Dr. Amable R. Aguiluz V was installed as the first AMA University president.

The billing system throughout the school has relied on pens and papers. The information of the students with regards to their billings, school fees, projected additional expenses, and other expenses within the year are done computing using pens and papers, they have a computer to encode the billing information, using the V-Look UP and Microsoft Office Excel 2007.

Due to manual usage, they noticed that certain problems cannot be avoided like data redundancies, missing records of the students. Furthermore, some could not be able to handle the massive volume of the students. Under the old manual billing scenarios, getting rid of paper improves efficiency, reduces human errors and allow information to flow to their system without a time consuming data input process. And also a higher student turnaround as enrollees will be saved faster.

And as the population of ACLC continues to grow, many difficulties in handling their billing in a manual process and one of the solution in this problem is to make their manual billing into a computerized system. With this, the proponent of this research sought to find the way to facilitate all the students billing records “an automated billing system” to replace the manual operations. The developer wants to improve especially to meet the needs of ACLC, also through this system, billing information is easily obtained hence, school tends to rely less in manual operations.

II. Statement of the Problems

The proponents would like to develop the ACLC to address the following problems of their school in terms of their billing system.

1. How the proposed enrollment system will help the school? 2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the current manual enrollment to the proposed enrollment system? 3. How the proposed system helps the daily operations of the school? 4. How can ACLC come up to the solution that may possibly solve their manual enrollment process? 5. Who are those beneficiaries of the proposed billing system? 6. What are the difference in using the current and the proposed system?

III. Objectives of the Study

Creating a computerized enrollment system of ACLC is the main objective of the study. The following are the specific goals: 1. To develop the system that will minimize the processing time in accessing records, and calculating fees of students. 2. To provide a proper computer-based database for ACLC. 3. To build a user-friendly system that produces accurate and error-free data results. 4. To monitor the integration of the different operations, which includes billing data, database system, and payments, it is a need for computerization. 5. To secure all the billings, payments, fees of the students. 6. To lighten the load of the staff in accessing records. 7. To improve their billing system.

IV. Scope and Delimitation

The study covers the billing process in ACLC (AMA Computer Learning System). The centered on means of speeding up the billing report, computation of transactions of billing. This study will be a great help in converting the manual system to computerized system for great speed retrieval. The system developed in such way that the company will be able to obtain the following: Maintain the complete files in computerized form, prepare billing report in an easiest way, updates record time to time. The proposed system has the limitations, does not include time to time printing of transactions and does not retrieve data if have power interruption.

V. Significance of the Study In the development of the study, the main goal of the developer is to develop a program that could be beneficial to as many people as possible. The computerized billing system is developed to provide constructive significance to the following:

The Registrar – Student registration or enrolling will going to be much easier because of the proposed system, saving student files and adding subjects is convenient and faster.

The Cashier – To make their work easy and also they could handle all the billings of the students without time consuming data input process and can make the computation of every transaction in the easiest way.

The Proponents – the development of the system challenges the programming skills of the researchers whereby searching for a new programming platform to make the common and simple program through a more sophisticated and advance approach. Students – they will accommodate in a short period of time during setting up their bill immediately.

Management of the School – it helps to organize and supervise its company especially the students who give fund to operate the school properly in the process of giving correct billing. Parents – it helps them to know the total bill and load that their son’s or daughter’s have for the whole semester and they are enrolled

VI. Hypothesis of the Study

The researchers will provide some predictions about the proposed billing system:

1. The proposed enrollment system will upgrade its manual enrollment process into an automated enrollment system. 2. It will lessen the works of the staff/ personnel through the help of proposed billing system. 3. The proposed system helps in minimizing the time and efforts and gives a convenient, more accurate, reliable, and there would be a consistent operations and procedures. 4. Through the help of proposed system, it will decrease the data handling errors of the students in their billings and information. 5. The proposed enrollment system could be the answer to the problems of the school in processing their billings. 6. The proposed enrollment system can change the current data management more efficient, secured, save more space for the office, handle or search student information easier and lessen data reiteration.