Project Specification Alan Counting, Edward Quals and Peter Rofit are in partnership in an… 1 answer below »

Project Specification

Alan Counting, Edward Quals and Peter Rofit are in partnership in an accounting practice, CQR. Thepractice specialises in taxation, auditing and financial advice for small to medium sized clients. Theystarted the practice in 2005 and it has grown to now employ 25 people. These employees includeother accountants and office staff. Alan, Edward and Peter believe the practice is headed for a periodof significant growth and have come to you to help them redevelop their Client Billing (CB) system sothat it copes better with their workflows and supports future growth opportunities.

At the moment, when a client turns up for a scheduled appointment or when an accountant visits aclient, the client's information is referenced using the client's name. If it is the first contact betweenthe practice and client, the client is asked to complete their details (i.e. name, address, contact name,contact number, ABN, TFN, structure, sector, service) on a client information form. Some of thisinformation is optional based on the type of client and area they operate in. For example, some clientsare simply salary and wage earners looking for assistance to complete tax returns and would not havean ABN, whilst others are companies requiring advice and assistance with the many different aspectsof operating their business. Once the relevant information is obtained for a new client, a unique clientnumber is allocated to the client.

The client is the legal entity being dealt with by the practice and clients are created based on theirbusiness structure type. A client record can only have one structure type. Examples include soletrader, individual, private company, partnership and trust. If for example, two individuals operate abusiness as a private company, and they want their company's tax return completed as well as their own, a client record would be created for that private company and separate client records would beset up to deal with the affairs of each of the individuals. There are circumstances though where a legalentity sits within another but this is not obvious e.g. where the practice performs superannuationduties and compiles returns for a self-managed superannuation fund for an individual. In thesecircumstances, there are two client records – the individual and the superannuation fund.

Sectors are the broad categories that allow grouping of clients for reporting purposes. Examples
include retail, construction, financial services, hospitality and manufacturing. Occasionally new sector
categories are created and the practice would like to record these with their code and description in a

</pclass="msonormal">