Portfolio - Aardappelen Michel

Overview

This application is one of the first I started with, and is the only one that is still continuously in full development. My uncle is self employed in selling potatoes (Aardappelen in Dutch) and ever since he got his first computer (3 years ago) he started to make his bills through Excell sheets. Someone set it up for him, and explained him how to work with it. Thanks to my IT knowledge, I was able to show him extra functionalities and this made the ball rolling. I provided my IT skills in creating an Access Database that allows my uncle to create very simple every months the bills for his customers. After a very successful test period, the application has become now his most important administrative tool and reduces the time spending on administrative tasks enormously.

In the past 2 years, the application has known different changes and function additions. The main goal is to manage all administrative tasks through one application. Functions added in the past are year overviews of the sales, creating and managing of price lists and improved user interface according to the demands of my uncle.

I am currently analyzing how to transfer the access application to a .NET Windows application with a SQL Server 2005 Express edition database. Doing so allows me to be much more flexible in adding functions.

Creating monthly bills

 The first functionality that made everything started was the request of easily creating monthly bills without much manual calculations to do. I came up with a way of creating all bills with just one click on a button.

But first the data needs to be inserted in the database. The data is represented in ordering form. Every time a delivery has been made, a form is created with all details. I created a form that looks exact like the paper document, which makes it easier to fill in.

All that has to be done is copy the data from the paper document to the electronic form and all calculations are automatically done by the computer.

Creating a bill is then simply done by selecting one option (creating all bills for an entire month, or just for one customer) and click 'Create'.

Managing and printing price lists

The functionality is added last summer. Prices of potatoes are very flexible and needs to change very often depending on the market. It is necessary that price lists are created for the market or personal use with the latest prices in a very easy way.

Until last summer, these price lists were created manually with a Word document, and no default lay-out was contained.

This function allows managing different price lists, adding or deleting sorts of potatoes (depending what is available at the moment), and changing their prices. The print function allows printing an updated list with always the same lay-out.

Prints are available in one page with all prices, and in one page per price for the market. The user can select which prices will be printed and which not.

Year overview report

This last functionality is currently in re-developing. The functionality in use for the past year is simply printing a report for the selected clients which give a monthly overview of the sold items and kilos over the period of one year.

Current developing will add more detailed reports for administrative use and graphical displays.