Spreadsheet project Essay Example for Free

Spreadsheet project Essay The user of my spreadsheet is a games company owner who needs to collect and distribute data to predict capital expense of wages for the future. They need to be able to see the expenses of their company and how, if the input into the spreadsheet is altered, the output is changed also. My spreadsheet is a model that simulates the real thing. As a company owner, the user should be able to record the various categories of income and expense and decide their course of action depending on how the store is doing on the spreadsheet. It should allow the user to make comparisons of profit/loss for that particular week, month or year. However, I will be going through this product as though I were the user and make references to the actual user of real life at appropriate times. I will be presenting the worksheets over a time span of a month so as not to make it too complex to understand. The product is aimed at the soul user of the system, which will be the storeowner. The name of my company is called Nintendo Universe. My company designs computer games for a number of consoles that we build. We sell accessories along with toys and magazines. We are basically a wholesaler selling our components to other big businesses. Our main headquarters is in California, America. We have a second headquarter in Tokyo, Japan. We have various factories and warehouses that produce and store these products and export them to big businesses on request. I have a total of 480 employees, out of which 100 are employed for the headquarters. Two hundred staff members are in the two production factories. The rest of my staff works in the various warehouses. I am the sole owner of the company. As this is a large trading enterprise, I have chosen to have a board of directors who are assigned various shared responsibilities and they own percentages of share in the company. As the executive director I overlook at all aspects of the business and with the help of my associate directors we try to promote sale, reduce loss, supervise the role of our employees and ensure that the company is run smoothly. Therefore they have a rotating system that will benefit and make our employees job easier. They are currently doing very well financially and may soon have to expand my business. This will in effect mean more vacancies and hopefully in the long run more profit. The problem is that Nintendo have been using manual methods such as using pen and paper and storing staffs information in cabinets. Therefore I will be creating a new and improved method of storing information better than their previous manual methods. With the current system the company is unable to do this because it is impractical and will take a lot of time just to find out the results for one small criteria but with the new system answers to many criteria changes can be found instantly. The companys current situation will have to be taken into account, this will be achieved through an interview with the people concerned after which the advantages and disadvantages must be studied. Each cell in a spreadsheet has its own address. For instance the intersection with column D with row 4 will give a cell with the address D4. (As shown above) Spreadsheet grids are frequently very large and only a small section of the sheet can be viewed on the screen at any one time. One sheet can be linked to another, so that as data is changed in one sheet, the other sheet is automatically brought up to date. The Formulas entered in a spreadsheet can refer to absolute data (fixed data) e. g. the price of a can drink is fixed at any time or relative data e. g. the time taken to drink 1 can will vary from time to time. Spreadsheets also have Macros, which are a set of commands recorded by the computer, which then can be replayed whenever the user wishes. These are particularly useful for tasks that will over and over again. Excel (Spreadsheet program) is able to use database features such as querying this is called filtering. This is something, which only sophisticated spreadsheets have. Why you need to use a spreadsheet: A spreadsheet is a powerful tool for experimenting with different mathematical models and asking What if! It can calculate totals and averages in a matter of few seconds whereas a manual system will take longer and is more likely to carry a higher percentage of human error. A spreadsheet also has the ability of formatting and displaying the results in different ways. It also comes with a library of formulae and functions as part of the program. The formulaes assist us in financial calculations, handling dates and times, for mathematical and statistical work and for logical expressions (e.  g. the SUM function and IF statement). Recalculation in a spreadsheet can be set manually or automatically which is not possibly if we were to do this by a manual system. What spreadsheet offers the business? : Spreadsheets will offer the business a lot because it will be much easier and reliable than manual methods. Features such as being able to copy formulas, change data without redoing formulas or losing original figures, produce graphs and copy into other packages are just some reasons as to why my business will benefit from the use of spreadsheet programs. These programs will also be a great benefit to me personally seeing as I deal with the finances I will be able to do calculations much quicker than using manual methods i. e. calculators. I could also receive and give stock orders between the branches more easily by linking with the other branches via Internet or another networking system. Finally spreadsheets are a more accurate representation of real life unlike manual methods. This in affect means being able to view the data in forms of currency, weight, distance etc and also being able t print out this information for reference. Access: If you are going to run an organization like the one in hand then a database program will not be very help towards your purposes because it does not have the ability/function to work out in depth, sophisticated, long calculations which you the user will need to work out calculations e. g. wages, overtime, working hours, profits/losses. It is also hard to access and very complicated to use. However it does provide an easy access to every particular thing under any field. The table is accurate and neat and already created for you to use. It also prevents from time consuming in every area. Access is used for storing, sorting and being able to easily retrieve certain types of data, this type of software is used for compiling information on customers, items etc. and being able to track, change and even rearrange the data. Why not to use a Database: A database is a collection of related data items, which are linked and structured so that the data can be accessed. It is designed to hold information and extract the relevant information very quickly. This program is not fully designed to carry out calculations, which a spreadsheet can perform. Therefore both programs are highly specific in the type of jobs they are designed to do. Desktop publishing: This is used for designing templates and presentations, using colour, clipart, and photographs. In this application a mixture of word/writing and pictures or designs are used. This type of software is used mainly to layout newspapers or magazines and other presentations, it is also in use to design web pages.