CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

This discusses the foreign and local studies and literature. The information

was acquired from various websites, journals, and publications related to the

researcher’s topic.

Foreign Literature

Long-term solutions for communities in need of improved water and

sanitation services, particularly in rural areas, rely on a careful balance of what

some refer to as natural, technical, and social factors. Global gaps in access to

appropriate water services in rural areas highlight the need for sustainable

management models, which are increasingly being proposed with a focus on

local user participation (Brown & Pena, 2016).

This study supports the proponent’s proposed system. Nowadays, Rural

communities should upgrade their way of transaction. Having a water billing

management system in a community will be a great help to improved faster

services and lessen manual works.

Over the last few decades, advances in information system software

integration have been made in the industrial sector. In reality, municipalities in

south Africa face numerous challenges as a result of unintegrated systems,

which results in inaccuracies in water resource management. As a result,

municipalities must ensure effective water billing through the integration of

information systems in order to reduce waste. The goal of the study is to create a

framework that municipalities can use to mitigate the challenges of integrating

their water billing information system ( Naki et al., 2018).

The study is to developed and offer improvements to the automation of the

water billing management in Barangay Jamislagan Since it only uses manual

transaction, it causes some challenges like what African municipality faces.

 The proponents developed a framework to cater lesser workloads to the

collector in delivering information, so that consumer can easily access their

accounts to know their bill.

The paper presents a novel method for performing automated water-meter

readings in order to update consumption data from the field of utility office. The

proposed smart metering solution employs low-cost Iot hardware and a

smartphone app. This scheme enables Meter Readers and individual

domestic/industrial consumers to perform meter reading and update the utility’s

database for billing and payment using standard smartphones (Chandapillai et

al., 2017).

The relevant of this article to the proposed system is that consumer can

view their current bill and records, but only the authorized person can update the

portal for meter readings.

According to the article ‘’A Total Automation in Water Management,

Distribution and Billing’’. The system provides complete automation for water

management, distribution, and invoicing. After computing the bill with automatic

billing software, the server will email the bill statement to the corresponding

users. Customers can then pay their bills online using their credit cards from the

comfort of their own homes. Only a little amount of staff is required for overall

system monitoring. As a result, there is little chance of neglect or

mismanagement (Hossan et al., 2016).

The article is relevant to the proposed system because it provides an

automation capability in calculating billing of consumer consumed costs, as well

as sending SMS to consumers regarding their current billing.

The rapid expansion of Africa’s mobile communications sector opens up

new possibilities for addressing the continent’s long-standing water service

challenges. The study quantifies the impacts of mobile water payments and

reveals the factors that drive and reduce customer adoption based on interviews

with managers from water service providers in four countries and an analysis of

household survey and billing data from a water supply scheme in Kenya.

According to the findings, collaborations between mobile network operators and

water service providers could result in more sustainable water service access for

inclusive, developmental outcomes (Foster et al., 2012).

Despite the fact that the proposed system does not support online

payments, you can still access your account via smartphones. This process will

make it simple for the consumer to keep track of his or her bill. The SMS support

will still notify the consumer if his/her payment is not received on or before the

due date

Local Literature

According to Janelyn A. Ambre (2016), the study examines the efficiency,

impact, usefulness, control and learnability of an automated water billing system

developed by the Abra State Institute of Science and Technology in Lagangilang,

Abra, Philippines. It has been demonstrated that the automated water billing

system must improve the current manual billing process. The Rapid Application

Development version provide a dependable and auto-billing device from

development to implementation (Ambre, 2016).

Similarly, the proposed system seeks to improve performance, reduce

human error, and avoid misreading handwritten data. So, in order to meet the

goal of minimizing the collector's efforts, consumers can check their accounts if

they want to know their current bill.

According 
According to Ziya ‘u Bello (2014), an SMS-based water billing system has been

developed for water boards to help streamline the process of sending bills to their consumers.
The billing burden has been reduced, and new features have been added. Consumers can

easily view their monthly water bills by logging into the organizations website (Bello, 2014).

The relevance of this literature is that it has also a function where consumers can

interact, like they can access the portal using their account to view their billing. It also has a

feature of SMS support to remind the consumer about their monthly dues.

According to Innovative Computerized Techniques for Individual

Management Optimization, a software management system that manages

individual expenses must have time and cost management features. The paper

describes a web-based application that manages the priority of utility payments in

order to meet the expected deadlines. The benefit of time efficiency is provided

by the minimal effort expended by an individual to handle the application and the

minimal costs imposed by the service (Popa et al., 2015)

The relevance of the preceding mention to the proposed study is that it is a

web-based application that caters billing management which is also accessible

also by consumer. It also aims to provide minimal effort and cost imposed by the

service.

Billing and fee collection are critical activities in a business. Organizations

that provide service because they have a direct impact on the income generated,

and doing the process manually is more prone to errors, especially when

encoding data (Aguila et al., 2015)

The relevance of the study to the proposed system is that it automates

billing activities for utilities. It generates bill and receipt. Transaction for

preparation can be completed quickly.

According to the article published by Innovative Technology & Management

Journal state that “A computerize billing system makes the complicated task of

billing simple, quick and accurate. The paper describes the creation of an

Automated Water Billing System for the local government unit of Hinunangan

Province of Southern Leyte” (Manun-og et al., 2018).

 The statement about computerization shows relevance to the study about

how should a community upgrade their manual transaction to provide a simple

yet accurate service to the consumer. It also states that the system is made up of

two applications, Desktop Reader and Mobile Reader. And, because the

proposed system is a web-based, it can be accessed by any device via its web

address from anywhere as long as it is connected to the internet. As long as

there is a mobile data signal, the staff can quickly input data after reading

wherever he or she is.

PHP is currently one of the most popular programming languages, widely

used in both the open source community and industry to build large web-focused

application. The review examines how PHP applications have evolved in terms of

library used, software maturity, complexity evolution and security (Siame &

Kunda, 2017).

Foreign Studies

Internet Billing promises far more than just a low-cost method of delivering

billing information. Paper bills have become the primary means of

communications between businesses and their customers. If a customer wants to

respond to something in his paper bill, he must call. The Internet Billing system

will serve as a way for electronic one-on-one conversations between customers

and businesses (Riggas, 2015).

The study’s, relevance to the proposed system is that they both emphasize

how the billing system can change the manual transaction, they both have

functions that will give a possible solution in the problem that arise during manual

transaction. Both the system generates reports and issues an invoice of monthly

payment of billing. In addition, the consumer can view their account by accessing

the web-application, which will him or her that the delivered billing statement is

the same in the portal.

The development of an automatic electronic water billing system in Egypt is

made up of smart meters. These meters are installed in every home and will take
water readings and wirelessly transmit them to the water company’s base station

via GSM modules. The readings are automatically saved in the database and

uploaded to the website, where the user can pay online. After each step, the user

receives frequent SMS notifications. (Shoukry et al., 2017).

The similarities between the above mentioned study and the proposed

system are that they both have features with which the staff and the consumers

can interact. This function ensures that the information is delivered quickly and

efficiently.

Billing is an important function of both the electricity and water boards in

order to get a meter read. The paper proposes a mobile based system for

collecting, processing, and notifying consumers about their consumers about

their consumption. It will be dependable, efficient and accurate to meet the

needs of the businesses. The proposed solution makes use of Mobile

Technologies, a solution that uses mobile application to manage a company’s

day-to-day operations (M.R.M.S.B. et al., 2013).

Water Bill Management Application developed in android studio with the

assistance of the cloud platform. The system’s main goal is to avoid water waste

and to minimize human inference in the payment process in order to avoid

mismanagement. A low-cost water flow meter is proposed in the AWB system,

which measures the flow rate of water passed through a specific user’s supply

pipe and generates bills based on that user’s water usage. This allows for greater

control over water usage without charging the user additional fees. The user is

given a deadline to pay the bill or else the supplier will cut off the water supply

(Dhumale et al., 2018).

The similarity to the proposed system is that they also proposed a system

that will facilitate in the avoidance of manual transaction and frequent errors,

such as incorrect bill creation and so on.

Local Studies
 According to (Pelandiana & Ado,2017), a Web-based billing and collection

for Municipal water and services unit is a system that designed to address a

municipal water unit’s problem. Meter reading will be paperless, it can be

accessed via the internet, allowing the end users and consumers to connect and

conduct transactions. Allowing them to become more efficient in their daily task

whether at home or work.

This study can be related in the proponent’s proposed system. It can be

accessed via internet using desktop, laptop, and android mobile devices that are

connected to internet. It can view your current bill and also the SMS support will

notify you when it’s over due date.

According to (Water Billing System – Student Project Guidance &

Development, 2017), The water supply management system will greatly aid in

the smooth operation and management of the city’s water supply system. People

will occasionally forget to pay their water supply bills. They will be able to make

online payments without fear of using this application at that time.

The significance is that they both want to have a smooth transaction to

avoid workloads. Although the system does not have the capability to accept

online payments, it has the capability to notify consumers when they fail to pay

their bills on time.

According to (Enriquez, 2014),” Cloud-based Billing and Monitoring

Management system for an Electric Company”, with the developed system, end-

users perceived his study as incredibly good and the company wanted to use the

proposed system in the future. The system according to the end-users and

technical experts was highly responsive in tablets, smart phones, laptops and

desktop. The researcher then also found out that proposed system could be a

good and acceptable solution to the problems of the company on their billing and

monitoring activities.

The relevance of the study to the proposed proposal is also similar. This is

to address the billing issues raised in the manual processed. In addition to the
aforementioned study, it is explained there that it is also simple to use in any kind

of devices.

According to Geraldine Landicho, the study is to create and implement a

web-based enrollment and billing system for school institutions that will reduce

human errors and processing time. The system will automatically compute

student’s tuition fees and provide a detailed statement of account for their

transactions. The aforementioned system has a secure enrollment process that

will provide an accurate report on each transactions (landicho, 2017).

The study is relevant to the proposed system, because it is both web-based

and more accessible, it also implements calculation automation, and it provides

transaction reports and invoices.

The Manila Water App includes features for checking current water bill and

viewing bill history. Consumer also can pay water bills via online payment or

mobile wallet. It also sends out service advisories and outage notices via push

notification (Manila Water App | Manila Water Company, Inc., n.d.).

Its similarity to the proposed study is that they both have a function where

the consumer interacts with the application and can see their billing history. It

also has a SMS alerts to notify advisories.

Synthesis of the Study

The Review of Related Literature and Studies serves as guidelines and

foundation of the proponents on the designed proposal. The proponents relied on

foreign literature such as Brown & Pena, (2016) and Naki et al., (2018) that

discuss how rural communities should upgrade their transaction methods and

how municipalities must ensure effective water billing through the integration of

information systems in order to reduce waste. The study's goal is to develop a

framework that municipalities can use to mitigate the challenges associated with

integrating their water billing information system.

system. Authors Ambre, (2016), Popa et

al., Aguila et al., (2015), and Manun-og et al., 2018discuss the efficiency, impact,

usefulness, control, and learnability of an automated water billing system that

prioritizes utility payments in order to meet expected deadlines. The benefit of

time efficiency is provided by the minimal effort expended by an individual to

handle the application as well as the minimal costs imposed by the service,

because doing the process manually is more prone to errors, particularly when

encoding data. A computerized billing system simplifies and quickens the

complicated task of billing. The following discussion is about Bello (2014), Foster

et al., (2012), and M.R.M.S.B. et al., (2013), which developed an SMS-based

water billing system for water boards to help streamline the process of sending

bills to their consumers. Collaborations between mobile network operators and

water service providers may result in more sustainable water service access for

inclusive, developmental outcomes, and the proposed solution employs Mobile

Technologies, a solution that employs mobile applications to manage a

company's day-to-day operations. The water supply management system will

greatly aid in the smooth operation and management of the city's water supply

system, according to the authors of local studies Water Billing System – Student

Project Guidance & Development, Landicho (2017), and Enriquez (2014).

According to end-users and technical experts, the system was extremely

responsive on tablets, smartphones, laptops, and desktop computers. That the

system will cut down on random mistakes and processing time. The authors

(Dhumale et al., 2018), (Manila Water App | Manila Water Company, Inc., n.d.),

discuss a Water Bill Management Application created in Android Studio with the

help of a cloud platform. The main goal of the system is to avoid water waste and

to minimize human inference in the payment process to avoid mismanagement,

and the App includes features for checking the current water bill and viewing bill

history. Water bills can also be paid online or with a mobile wallet. It also uses

push notifications to send out service advisories and outage notices. The authors

Pelandiana and Ado and Shoukry et al., (2017) discuss a Web-based billing and

collection for Municipal water and services unit is a system designed to address

a municipal water unit's problem. Meter readings will be paperless and

accessible via the internet, allowing end users and consumers to connect and

conduct transactions. Readings will be automatically saved in the database and

uploaded to the website, where users can pay online. The user receives frequent

SMS notifications after each step. While authors Chandapillai et al., (2017), Boyle

et al., (2011), and Riggas, (2015) discuss Internet Billing, they also describe a

low-cost method for utilities to learn more about customer usage patterns by

using existing billing data. The proposed smart metering solution makes use of

low-cost IoT hardware and a smartphone app. Using standard smartphones,

Meter Readers and individual domestic/industrial consumers can perform meter

reading and update the utility's database for billing and payment.

Bridging the Gap

The literature and studies gathered by the researcher are relevant to the

proposed study. All of the research and literature indicates that converting

manual billing transactions to computerized billing transactions is a significant

benefit to a community and business organization and it is for Barangay

Jamislagan. The proposed systems is for Barangay Jamislagan. It differs only in

that it is web-based, where consumers can interact, and it also notifies consumer

of their monthly dues via SMS integration.

Technical Background

The web-based water billing management system with SMS support's

technicality is to process manual transactions in order to provide easier services,

such as delivering information to consumers via SMS. Furthermore, because it is

web-based, it is more accessible on any device. It saves each consumer’s

information, generates a report, and issues a billing payment invoice. This

chapter also focuses on the discussion on the specific procedures and research

methods. Visual Studio Code, XAMPP, HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, JavaScript, PHP,

and Sql were all used in the proposed system. The scripting language use in the

development of the proposed system were HTML for the developing of the web-
based system, CSS for the design of the website. The web developing

framework used is Bootstrap to make the website flexible to a mobile browser,

browser,

and the programming language used are JavaScript to add scripting functions to

support the system, PHP language to connect and manage the database to the

web-based system, and Sql for the database. Furthermore, the researchers use

the Visual Studio Code software to write a series of codes to build the proposed

system, as well as the XAMPP application to create the Sql database and to run

a localhost for the PHP code. Below is the hardware and software specification

for development and deployment also the description and purpose of each

programming and software used in the study.

Table 1. Hardware Requirements for Development and Deployment

Hardware Description

Processor Minimum 1 GHz; Recommended

2GHz or more

RAM Minimum 1 GB; Recommended 4

GB or above

HDD Minimum 32 GB; Recommended 64

GB or more

Solid State Drive Minimum 120GB; Recommended

240GB SSD or above

The table above shows the Hardware Requirements for Development and

Deployment of the proposed system, which indicates the minimum and

recommended requirements for processor, RAM, HDD, and SSD development

and deployment.

Table 2. Software Requirements for Development and Deployment

SOFTWARE DESCRIPTION

Server Environment

Operating System Windows 8; Recommended Windows 10 Home

 or above

Programming Tool Visual Studio Code version 1.60; Recommended

1.64 or above

Structure and Design Tool HTML 4.01; HTML 5 or above

CSS 3; CSS 4 or above

Web Development Bootstrap v3.x; Bootstrap v5.x or later

Framework

Programming Language PHP  Version 5.6.20+ (7.3 and later strongly

recommended) JavaScript ECMAScript 2015;

ECMAScript 2016 or above

Database Server Xampp v5.6.30-0; v7.0.15-0 or above

Client Environment

Internet Browser Google Chrome or any latest version

The table above shows the Software Requirements for Development, which

include the operating system, programming tool, structure and design tool, web

development framework, programming language, and data server, which

represent the minimum requirement version, and for deployment, the client

server can use a browser such as Google Chrome or any other recent version.

Programming Language and Software Used

The following is a description of the programming language and software

used in the development of the proposed system.

Bootstrap. is a free front-end framework for faster and easier web

development. Bootstrap includes HTML and CSS based design templates for

typography, forms, buttons, tables, navigation, modals, image carousal and many

other as well as optional JavaScript plugins. The proponents used Bootstrap to

make the website flexible to a mobile browser.

 Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). is a stylesheet language used to describe

the presentation of a document written in HTML or XML.The proponents used

CSS for the design of website.

HTML. in full hypertext markup language, a formatting system for displaying

material retrieved over the Internet. The researchers used HTML to construct or

develop the web-based system.

JavaScript. (often shortened to JS) is a lightweight, interpreted, object-

oriented language with first-class functions, and is known as the scripting

language for Web pages, but it’s used in many non-browser environment as well.

The proponents used the JavaScript to add scripting functions to support the

system.

PHP. is a server side scripting language that is embedded in HTML. It is

used to manage dynamic content, databases, session tracking, even build entire

e-commerce sites. The proponents use PHP language to connect and manage

the database to the web-based system.

SQL. strands for Structured Query Language which is basically a language

used by database. This language allows to handle the information using tables

and show a language to query these tables and other objects related (views,

function, procedures, etc.). The proponents use the SQL for the database.

Visual Studio Code. is a streamline code editor with support for

development operations like debugging, task running, and version control. It aims

to provide just the tools a developer needs for a quick code-build-debug cycle

and leaves more complex workflows to fuller featured IDEs. The proponents use

Visual Studio Code to support for the development operations like debugging,

task running and version control.

XAMPP. is a software distribution which provides the Apache web server,

MySQL database (actually MariaDB), Php and Perl (as command-line

executables and Apache modules) all in one package. The researchers used for
the localhost server to run the PHP file or web-based system, and then also run

this database and connect to the system.