DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN AUTOMATED

SCHOOL FEES PAYMENT SYSTEM (A CASE STUDY OF

ANGLICAN GIRL'S GRAMMAR SCHOOL, AWKUNANAW,
ENUGU STATE)

ABSTRACT

Automated school fees payment system is a research work that will help build
an effective information management system for Anglican Girl's grammar
secondary school within the admin department. The designed software will
serve as a more reliable and effective means of documenting school fees
payment and cash payment and eliminate errors associated with the manual
method of recording payment details. This project work made use of data
collected from the secondary school library, and journals.  The aim of this
project work is to achieve the following; to effectively and efficiently process
students school fees payment and document it, to provide a reliable and
transparent system devoid of personal inclinations and interest and to provide
borderless access to ensure prompt retrieval. The implementation of the
computer-based school fee payment documentation system was carried out
using Visual basic languages, Access database. The result obtained from this
work was the design of an efficient system that will help to enhance the system
of school fees payment, with minimal cases of error so as to give room for
accuracy and transparency. In conclusion, the work met all the objectives
intended.
TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Title page                                                                                          i                
Approval Page                                                                                  ii           
Dedication                                                                                         iii
Acknowledgment                                                                              iv     
Table of contents                                                                              v-vii
Abstract                                                                                            viii           
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.0     Introduction                                                                                 1  
1.1     Background of the Study                                                           2-4
1.2     Statement of the Problem                                                            4
1.3     Aims and Objectives of the Study                                          5
1.4     Significance of the Study                                                             6
1.5     Scope of the Study                                                                  6
1.6     Limitation of the Study                                                            6
1.7     Definition of Terms                                                                  7-8

CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

2.0     Introduction                                                                                     9-10
2.1     Record Management                                                                10-11
2.2     Automated Payment Systems                                                11-13   
2.3     Reasons for Automation of Cash Operation                                   13
2.4     Computerized Recordkeeping/ Accounting System                       13-14
2.5     Definitions of Record Management                                          14-15
2.6     Managing Electronic Records                                                   15-16
2.7     Methods and Types of Electronic Payment                                   16-17
2.8 Role of Information Technology in the Academic System           17-19
2.8.1 Data and Information                                                               20-21
2.8.2 Computer Based Information Systems                                            21-23
CHAPTER THREE:  SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN
3.1     General Description                                                              24
3.2     Fact Finding Method Used                                                       24-25         
3.3     System Requirements                                                             25-26     
3.4     Program Design                                                                        26
3.5     Database Design                                                                        28
3.6     System Design                                                                           28-29
3.7     System Flowchart                                                                      29
3.8     Program Flowchart                                                                  30
3.9     Use Case Diagram                                                                      31-33

CHAPTER FOUR: SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION AND TESTING

4.1     Implementation                                                                        34      
4.2     System Sub Function and Implementation                              34-35
4.3     Sub System Implementation                                                    35-37    
4.4     Program Testing                                                                      38 
4.5     Program Implementation                                                         38
4.6     Software Testing                                                                      38-39
4.7     Program Procedural Chat                                                          40

CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND

RECOMMENDATION -  
5.1     Summary                                                                                41
5.2     Conclusion                                                                             42
5.3     Recommendation                                                                   43
References                                                                                       44-46
Appendix A “Program Source Code
Appendix B “Input and Output Format
 CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
          The essence of obtaining an education is for better adaptation in society,
and to be able to make an impact therein. The desire to acquire knowledge is the
natural feeling of mankind and every human being whose mind is not
debauched will be willing to give all that is required of him/her to get
knowledge.
It is based on this fact that educational institutions have been set up for
people to enroll and learn. However a there is always a price to be paid for such
knowledge. This price is commonly referred to as ‘School Fee’ or ‘tuition fee’.
According to Oxford Dictionary (6th Edition), fee is defined as an
amount of money that one pays for professional services. Simply put, school fee
is that fixed interval payment made by a student or students to the school he or
she attends. From the definition, one can outline that school fee payment
supposed to be in a regular interval that is timely, however a times such fees are
not paid as at when expected. This could be as a result of financial challenges
on the part of the student.
Late payment of school fees creates a lot of problems for school management.
When students refuse to pay their school fees in time, the school management
lacks the financial strength to be as effective as expected. Apart from the
management being ineffective financially, students also face challenges such
as not being allowed to write their examinations. The need
for  ‘computer  based’ system for fees payment necessitated this research, in
order to help solve these problems of either delayed fee payment, or the students
not paying at all or the fee being misused/mismanaged or stolen as a result of  a
criminal attack. Either on student at the course of payment or the bursary
department/school management.
Using Anglican Girl's Grammar School Awkunanaw, Enugu state as a case
study, the research has the intention of creating a software that could process
students school fees payment to Anglican Grammar girl's bank accounts and
electronically lodging individual students fees indicating name, class, category,
registration number, level/class, date of payment, amount of money paid,
academic session/ bank's name, account number, phone number, and other
personal records etc. This will ensure timeliness and safety of payment.

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Anglican Girl's Grammar School, Awkunanaw, Enugu state was founded in the
year 1962 and became operational on the 15th of March with twenty-nine
students. Subsequently two students arrived to make a total of thirty one
students. The pioneer Principal is MissJ.O. Emelumadu (now Mrs.Muo). Three
non-tutorial staff were part of the foundation workers. They are namely:
Beatrice Aloanza (cook), OnamNnji and Nweke Ede (Watchmen). The school
operates with the following levels JSS and SSS for the SSS
science, commerce and art schools.
In this school, there is need for an automated method of keeping data, more so a
greater need for an automatic school fees payment system. These would go a
long way in alleviating the various problems and challenges associated with the
manual method of school fees payment.
Hence it became imperative for a school fees payment system to be put in place
to eliminate the shortcomings of the manual system.
Today the computer is being used in virtually every sphere of human endeavors,
we can find computers everywhere around us. In fact the story of the
21stCentury will be incomplete without mention of computers and their
applications. It’s almost impossible to even imagine the modern facilities
without the use of computers. For many individuals computer means ‘PC’, on
which they can see movies, play games, prepare office sheets and manage daily
planners.
Computer means much more than the term ‘PC’. A computer can simply be
defined as a machine which takes instructions and perform computations and
operations accordingly. These commanded instructions are known as programs
and computers execute these programs to do an operation. At a time, a set of
instructions can be given to a computer to perform several operations,
simultaneously. This feature is a point of distinction for the computers.
Many types of computers are available these days. Depending on their usage
and service application. They can be classified in various categories.
Supercomputers are capable of doing trillions of calculations in fraction of
seconds, so they are used as controlling units of banking transactions; to keep
records of railway systems, in schools to monitor school fees payment system in
the bursary department and air transportations; to conduct decent flow of
telecommunication and many more complex operations can be controlled,
organized and conducted by using supercomputers.
On the other hand computers are also used in conducting simple operations like
billing, ticket transactions, record maintenance, security analysis etc. And even
computers (PC) are also used to carry out general home based activities such as
office sheet maintenance, day planner, entertainment etc. So computers are
involved in every sector of life with different forms and different applications.
In modern our world everything around us like GPS, ATM machines, cell
phones, petrol pumps, portable play stations and all other devices use computer
controlling units to conduct their featured operations.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The processes of manual school fees payment have resulted to a lot of problems,
which in turn prevent students from writing exams in time due to the slow rate
of processing the school fees from the bursary department. There are also cases
of misplacement of the school fee tellers because of lack of adequate storage
medium.
1.3     OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The specific objectives of this project include:
i.        To provide a reliable and transparent system devoid of personal
inclinations and interest
ii.       To provide a system that will relieve the staff and works of the academy
the stress of searching files or data manually
iii.      The new system will bring an end to the issues of lost receipts or of any
kind as the records and data will be stored in the new system’s database which
is safe and reliable for use and operation.
iv.      The new system gives a quick access to data and modification of records
if necessary.
v.       To save time (fast inputting and accessing of records)
vi.      To design a system that will be capable of generating the student receipt
when payment is made and recorded with all the corresponding awaiting bills is
incurred
vii.     To ensure accuracy in record keeping.
viii.    To ensure safety of the documents/records, because the system will be
password aided to enhance security.

1.4     SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The project work will help in a good number of ways to ease the operation of
the existing system of school fees payment. The new system will contribute to
the efficient management of school fees payment records.

1.5    SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This research work is limited to school fees payment and documentation for the
student of the Girl's grammar secondary school, Awkunanaw, Enugu. The
resultant software is developed using Visual Basic, MS Access, so as to manage
both the database and the Graphical user interface (GUI).
1.6     LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
Some of the constraints those outcomes of this work include:
Resources: The cost of hardware, software, site design, and online distribution
cost, maintenance of site and time constraint; all these factored into the cost of
providing the product.
Power supply: Non Availability of stable, efficient and reliable power supply is
also a limitation of this project as it is dependent on electricity.
The bandwidth, which means how quickly information travels between the
computer where your web site is located (your Web server), and the visitor’s
computer. In spite of the fact that 56.6kbps modems, and even 10Mbps cable
modems are becoming more common, many people on the internet are still
using 28.8kbps modems.
1.7 DEFINITION OF TERMS
Computer Network: Computer Network is a system that connects two or more
computers together using a communication link. (Bufts 1989) World Wide
Web: World Wide Web simply called www is the most important tool of the
Internet. (Jeff 20010)
Databases: A systematically arranged collection of computer data, structured so
that it can be automatically retrieved or manipulated. It is also called databank.
(Adoca 2001)
File Transfer: Any kind of computer file can be sent via the Internet from one
Internet user to another. Table of accounts on spreadsheets, design by a graphic
artists, music sound files etc, can all be exchanged in this way. (Smith 1999)
Web Brower: This is a special kind of software that processes hypertext make-
up language (HTML) document. In other words, a web browser is a computer
program that interprets HTML command to collect, arranged and display the
parts of a web page. (Cleff 2000)
Web Site: A website is a collection of many interconnected web pages
organized by a specific college, organization company etc, containing web
pages (good and commodities) on the Internet. Web site is stored on web
servers. There are many web site and thousands of HTML pages on each web
site. A web site is a treasure of information and entertainment. (Donald 1986)
Hyperlinks: Hyperlinks are highlighted words and phrase you find on web
documents that you can click on as to jump to some other documents or Internet
services. ( Clex 1990)
Offline: Disconnected from computer network; describes a computer terminal
or peripheral device disconnected from a computer network. (Wikipedia 2011)
System: Set of computer components that is, an assembling of hardware,
software and peripherals functioning together. (Fans 2011)
Automation: This is the use of control system such as computer to control and
process data, reducing the need for human intervention.
Database: This refers to a large store of related data on a computer that can be
accessed and modified by the user.
Record: is a document made or received in the course of a practical activity as
an instrument or a by-product of such activity, and set aside for action or
reference.
Password: This is a secret code that a user must type into a computer to enable
him access it or its applications. This is composed of numbers, letter, special
character or a combination of any of the above categories.
Receipt: a piece of written note that attests to a payment made to one another
caring the amount paid and balance if incurred usually signed by both party or
one end.