CHAPTER THREE
SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Introduction
System analysis is the study of a system, with the view to determine the bottlenecks and desired end product and establish the most efficient method of obtaining this end (American Heritage Dictionary, 2003). It is the analysis of the requirements of a task, and expression of these tasks in a form that enables a computer to perform the task. System analysis also refers to the process through which an existing system is examined with the intent of improving it, or creating a new system, through better procedures and methods (Schach, 1996).
3.2 Methods of Data Collection
Before the design of the proposed system, the basic problems and weaknesses confronting the present system were identified and defined in other to get the needed requirements of the proposed input/output specifications in line with what the automated proposed system would achieve.
The method used in data collection during the course of finding the feasibility of the new system includes;
Oral Interview
This was done when we visited the federal Inland Revenue service, which gave us an insight of how they carry out their operation with the system they already had, which led to the identification of problems listed above, and the zeal in finding lasting solutions to the identified problems.
Review of Document
We tried as much as we could to lay our hands on documents and journals that relates to our work at large and seeing the ideas of other people.
Website Research
This provides us with a wide range of information relating to network monitoring system and network activity monitoring system.
Library Research
It was quite helpful though little information was gotten from there.
3.3 Analysis of the Existing System
The activities of the bursary unit of BIRS include collecting taxes, collecting transaction request voucher (TRV) from the cash office for income collection, receiving and recording the retirement vouchers, receiving semi-annual inventory report (SIR) that emanates from different units and they also account for expenditure purpose through the cash office. The department has two sections, the operations unit and the reconciliation unit. These units consist of systems which are all on the same network, and serve as client. It also has a server where the accounting software is installed.
The individual client’s works as well as store directly to the server. With the help of their monitoring software, the system records the daily activities with their respective dates only at the end of each day in each user’s folder.
At the end of every month, the staffs at the operation unit will stop operation for the staff at the reconciliation unit to process the data they have already worked on. This is to avoid malfunctioning of the server such as hanging or disrupting the operations done by the reconciliation unit. The operation unit will resume work when the reconciliation staffs are through with their work. The time limit depends on the volume of work to be processed by the reconciliation unit.
The CPU usage depends on size of the work on the general ledger at a given time and because the server has a low memory and space, both units at the bursary department cannot work at the same time. However, this system does not explore the hierarchy of the processes, which can reveal important information on user behaviour.
