We've finally completed our project,part 2, part 3 and part4.
Jubilation is in the air.
We can finally concentrate on our exams.
Well done,Team Loving AC213!

This marks the end of the AC213 course. We've come thus far, thanks to a wonderful and hardworking group.
We were glad to know that Prof Pelly loved our blog!(:
Team Loving AC213 bids goodbye for now.
Gracias.

Presenting to you, the end of Rush Hour 1.

(Team Loving 213 certainly hopes that there will not be an sequels to this)

Final preparations for the submission of the I.T. report is an awfully stressful and terrorising experience.

However,it isn't deterrinng our love for AC213 (:

GAWPS.It isn't everyday you see the nerdy girls.

The bed is calling out to us..


Thank you everyone for the tremendous hard work put in.
Let's put in as much work for the upcoming parts for this project.

Team Loving 213 bids you goodbye for now.
We'll be back,with MORE surprises!

TGIF!

Enjoy the weekend everyone.

PART 1 IS DONE!!!!!!!!!!!

i cannot express how happy i am to make this post. hahahahahahah good job everybody(:

Check This Out!

hahaha.. we're all trying too finish the project right now and happened too stumble upon this photo that we took at the centre that day!
What a cover page for an invoices file (:

Presentation of Findings!!

Our First baby!!!

We are extremely proud to present to you....

The Nurture Education's Operations!!!

Here are a few entertaining videos to take you through some of NE's employee's routine tasks:


1)Booking of Trial Lessons

Castings & Credits:

1)Hong Jing--> Lecherous Lousy Student
2)Crystal-->Marketing in-charge
3)Angeline-->Camera Woman!

Process:
Student Hj calls Marketing Crystal to check details of tuition & book trial class. Marketing Crystal will then key in student particulars into her mobile phone book! (We know.. It seems really unprofessional)

Then, Marketing will call Admin staff (not shown) to check availability of slots before calling student back to confirm trial lesson timing.

2)Student Registration Process

Student will be asked to fill up Student Particulars Form after his/her trial lesson & indicate choice of course verbally to the receptionist. The receptionist will then inform the student of the relevant payments to be made:
- Registration fee $10
-Refundable Deposit $50
- First month's Tuition Fee $XXX

Student can pay on the spot or the week after when they turn up for their actual lesson. Payment of these administration fees is processed similarly as payment of tuition fees that will be illustrated below.

We did take a video but it turned out a little too monotonous for our liking as there was a lot of filling up forms & filing. (Both of the things that we hate to do in everyday life!!!=x)

3)Invoicing

We shan't bore you with the paperwork. But in SHORT:

Receptionist-->Calculate Fees for EACH OF THE 67 STUDENTS with the help of Microsoft excel.
Receptionist--> Manually type Itemized Student Invoice for EACH OF THE 67 STUDENTS using Microsoft Word and....

Leave the invoice on the receptionist table for the students to find their copy amongst 66 OTHER COPIES

Phew. No wonder we hate paperwork.

4)Payment of tuition fees

This is where our Lecherous Student pays his HUGE amount of tuition fees!!

Now, if you couldn't understand what just happened...
I shan't explain. Watch again. =9

4)Refund of Deposit

In the last month of the student's enrolled course, he/she is required to bring back the receipt issued for his deposit payment. Upon verifying the receipt, the receptionist will offset the student's last tuition fee payment by $50 (amount of deposit paid previously) and process the remaining collectible similarly in (3).

If the student has misplaced their receipt, (which the best of students do- misplace everything i mean) the receptionist will then base his/her refund on the carbon copy that NE keeps.

However, if the student forgets to refund at his last payment, then a cash will have to be withdrawn from the bank separately and given to the student by the finance staff.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And here's what will happen when there are no CONTROLS and CREATIVELY MISCHIEVOUS PEOPLE hangs around....

This is a possible scenario that may occur in Nurture Education. The receptionist never locks the drawer even if there's cash kept in it. This opens up the possibility of theft.

In the above scenario, Hong Jing the SNEAK, takes his opportunity when our dear Charlene the Bimbo Recept, who is also making her maiden appearance, goes away from the counter for awhile. He also took the stolen opportunity to retrieve information about this particular student and is planning to enter into a kidnap conspiracy with other bad crooks of his gang.

Alas! So Dark the Con of Man!!

Prior preparations to the filming of the video

Crystal is directing us into action!

Charlene is getting into the role of her receptionist.

Files are left on the floor.

The $50 dollar note is kindly sponsored by me =D

Taking a tiny break in between.Filming isn't easy..

Therefore, it is essential that Nurture Education should have measures that arrest these risks immediately. We will further explain this in our report!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Had fun watching the videos? Our group sure did! Thank you HONG JING for making such a humorous vidEo! And thanks to CRYS who gladly acted as the marketing in charge in the skit. And thank you ANGELINE for being such a fantabulous camera woman =D Some self praise goes a long way in boosting my ego =D

Still with us? Our group certainly hopes so!If you found the above process slightly cumbersome and 'unprofessional',please be assured that you are not the only one.
Look at how we've solved the problem in our Report!

Credit Rolls.....

A HUGE PAT ON THE BACK FOR:
1)Hj for the hilarious videos
2)Crystal for directing & putting out acts together
3)Angeline-Camera Woman
4)Charlene-Stand in lousy camera woman responsible for the video with the weird orientation (I am so sorry!!!)

5)Angie for the documenting of what happened that day.
6)Char (me me me!!!) Editor of the post!!!


Team Loving AC213 sincerely hope that this has given you as much insight as it has given us fun!!!

Introducing our Visit to Nurture Education

Finding Nurture Education Team Loving AC213 is proud to present, our 4 part saga of Checking Out Nurture Education.

Episode 1 begins with Finding Nurture Education of course.Hong Jing, Crystal and I battled the rain to go to Nurture Education for the site visit. Charlene planned to join us slightly later because she had important plans prior to this site visit. We had some trouble finding the place.When we finally saw the poster for Nurture Education we all heaved a sigh of relief!FINALLY!No more stair climbing =D

Presenting our impressive and entrepreneuristic partners of Nurture Education:

From left, Law Whye Kiat(NUS, FASS, Yr1), Ng Kim Wah Joseph(NTU, NBS, Yr1) and Samson Yeo(NUS, Law, Yr1).

Whye Kiat was the President of Saint Andrew's Junior College 26th Student Council in 03/04. Joseph is a budding entrepreneur who is in the midst of setting up his childcare centre in Choa Chu Kang. Samson Leo was a (Men's Light-weight White & Yellow Belt) Bronze medallist in his days at Victoria Junior College.

Impressive track record!

There was much insight gathered during this trip to Nurture Education. They are also open to using other software, such as Microsoft Access and Quickbooks to aid them in their business operations.

During the discussion with Samson, we discovered that they had just installed Quickbooks to help them with their generation of invoices. Therefore, the initial problem of having to manually generate each invoice is solved. However, Quickbooks is unable to calculate the number of weeks in a particular month and the administrative personnel has to still manually key in the necessary fields. This still allows room for human error.


Nurture Education is in the midst of overhauling their system and thus it would not be feasible for us to keep up with the changes continuously.

Therefore, the group came to a consensus that we would 'ignore' these changes for time being and do our report based on the knowledge that we knew initially.


Snapshot of the carbon copy receipt

This is a copy of Nurture Education invoice.

Some lighthearted moments.

1. ANGELINE got caught stealing from the pantry.Sharp eyed Charlene eh!

2. What's the joke about?!

3. Enthusiastic Angeline, Burnt out HongJing, Pretty Charlene and Crystal is a great photographer!

4.

Battle of the Procrastinating Bug & the Bed Monster

Now let us take you through our VIBRANT(-ly sad) life in NBS even though this is not in our project requirements.

Yesterday, Me & Hj agreed to meet up to finish up our part together. The draft was already out but we decided that we needed to tie up some loose ends and that unity is STRENGTH. Look what happened:


Of course we were doing work in between. (Although half my attention was on my loading Korean drama =p ). It took us 6 hours to FINALLY meet up!

But it was a productive meeting nonetheless. 12am-430am in the air-conditioned comforts of Hall 16D tv lounge.

The conclusion to the end of our meeting that day was:

Lol. We got invaded at 3 am when the match started. The isolated lounge was so totally filled up with Man U fans.


The things people do for 11 guys chasing after a ball.
Hold on. Is it 11 or 12?

Great Progress!

2nd Interview Transcript

Hello Ladies & Gentlemen!

This is to inform you that Joseph has replied to our 2nd batch of questions and the transcripts are in your email now. Please take a look and feedback to hj on any other queries that you might need to clarify!

Reminder!

Our next meeting is this Friday (5th Oct). Please come equipped with suggestions regarding Control Risks & BPR principles. We will be vetting through the report draft to ensure that the contents are sufficient and flow smoothly.

Venue: SR 4

Also, we will be making our way down to NE on Sunday (7th Oct)

Meeting Time & Place will be 115pm @ Kovan MRT.

Things we will be doing:

1. Samson will take us through what actually happens at every stage of their revenue cycle
2. Further interview if necessary, mainly presenting our system flowchart to him to ensure accuracy
3. Filming of the processes in the revenue cycle

Yup. That'll be all for now. Rest well & take care. Tough tough week ahead!!

Full Steam AHEAD!!!

Yoohoo! We've got the green lights once again! Many thanks to Prof's prompt reply! We've all been twisting our arms and squirming around for the past few days!

Everybody! Do what you're supposed to do! A 2nd email interview has already been sent out. All's looking good now =)

Professor Wong

Our group met up once again for our AC213.Weary as we were after a tough week at school, we trudged back to school with the hopes of refining the flowchart.

As you can see, we are listening attentively while HJ is explaining the refined flowchart. Charlene and HongJing laboured over the first draft.Thanks guys!




As for Crystal and I,we have completed our REA model. Thanks for the hard work girl!

Presents from NE: Forms used in operations

Look what came in the mail today!

Joseph kindly sent us copies of the forms that are currently used in NE's day to day operations. This will certainly help us in understanding their information needs and fill in the blanks that the previous interview transcript failed to cover.

It has been forwarded to everyone. Please do take some time to go through it! Especially the Student Registration Form!!

Thoughtful presents from NE!! =)

Meeting #01 & tonnes of insecurity

Just a quick summary of what happened today @ meeting:

What's done:

1. Work was effectively splitted up, allocated & structured.
2. Came up with even more questions about NE's Revenue Cycle
3. Set deadline for phase 1 of our project

Thanks Crystal for coming up with the delegation of roles. So now, Hj & me are supposed to come up with the description & flowchart of the revenue process (yes, me, the morbid flowchart fanatic =9 )

Then we will "present" the whole cycle to you, and pass it on for crystal & angie to evaluate the process critically.

Great Plan.

However, the initial system flowchart that we generated in the lab today looks really simple. (Albeit great effort expanded to avoid the deathly traps of the syntax error monster..) I'm not exactly sure that NE suits the requirement of the project. Hence, we decided that we should confirm with Prof Pelly the feasibility of using NE again. Till then, lets slow it down a little.

It'll really be a waste if we have to abandon NE in search of greener pastures. They have provided us with so much in 1 interview & they are seriously looking to us for a solution.

=x

REA models!

Angeline and I started on the REA model. but we're still quite confused about what resources to put in the model because our firm is a service firm!

We need to do what Prof Pelly always says! Refer to other models while doing our own REA model.

We also realized that it’s much easier to print out the entities for the REA diagram and then use pencil to draw the cardinalities in!!! hahaha.. it was so much trouble trying to get the lines at the right angle. But.. then we discovered Microsoft Visio. hahaha i'm so swakoo.

The FIRST Source of Information

The bad news & the GOOD news =)

As you all know, Nurture Education (hereon known as NE) was set up by 4 partners and up till very recently, solely ran by the 4 of them. What we have just found out is that:

All 4 of them are current year 1 undergraduates!!!

That's like really cool and inspiring. Makes me wonder what am I doing with nothing to my name.

Apart from drowning in self sympathy, there is a bigger, more SIGNIFICANT problem.

Between school, projects & work, they seriously do not have time to have a face to face interview with us! Hence, we have sent them our interview questions through email.

And they have replied.

Within the day! And with great answers too! The email transcript will be circulated via emails so do check your mails ya?

Thanks to Hj for being our point of contact, pat on the back for angie & myself for coming up with the interview questions!!

Here's a sneak preview..

Very Prompt reply by Joseph (Marketing In-Charge), but answers were actually provided by Samson. THE man of the agency.

I can't believe we actually sent this to them! How could we have missed that line? It was supposed to be a reminder for us in the verbal interview. Oh well, just for laughs then.

Reminder!

Next meeting is on TOMORROW( 26th Sep) at IT Lab. (Whoever arrives first, just chop whichever is empty! )

Cya!!

Approval! Approval!

Guess what.

We've got the green light!!! Here goes...

=)

Finally! Some Good news!

Hail Hong Jing! The deliverer of good news! After 2 weeks of bad news from our failure to secure a willing company (thanks for the effort though angie! ^_^), we have finally gotten our wish! So THIS will be the start of our journey (subjected to Prof's approval. Keep your fingers crossed!)


This is the link to what will be our focus for the next 2 month or so. Get comfortable & intimate with it!
http://www.nurtureeducation.com/

Be prepared darlings! War ahead!!!

A Glimmer of Hope

We have attempted to find a company for the past 2 weeks!My friend, Yongjie, has a family business with rental TVB drama serials. However, the shop's operations is too small and therefore, is not planning to expand. TVB Rental Video Shop- OUT

My friend's mother has a chicken rice shop. This was definitely part of our consideration. However, this idea was eventually rejected as well. We felt that it was difficult to analyse the revenue cycle because it was too simple. Rasa Sayang Chicken Rice Stall - OUT

Hong Jing and I talked online and we were thinking of doing on a tuition centre.I had previously worked as a tuition coordinator for Tuition Solutions(Now defunct).I had experience utilising the database as a coordinator and realised that it's a feasible idea.Charlene felt that there was no harm trying and therefore,we got Hong Jing to ask his freshie, Joseph if he could help us out in this area. Hong Jing told us that Joseph is a partner for a certain tuition centre.We certainly hope that he will bring us good news!

Headache!

It’s such a headache looking for a company to do our project on!!!!! So far we none of us have any connections with anyone who owns a company except for me. Unfortunately my Dad’s company doesn’t have enough employees to meet the requirements and he doesn’t use an Accounts Receivable account. AHH!!! Hope to find a company soon!!