HSBC Pricing Strategy Analysis

HSBC Pricing Strategy Analysis As long as the wider economic situation remains doubtful, it is advisable for HSBC to adopt a wait-and-see approach and a careful look at their businesses, stress testing them for both economic downturn and full-blown recession. And it would be useful to factor in the wider commercial and operational impacts through combined risk, valuation, economics, operations and HR teams. Certainly, for financial services firms like HSBC, crisis management still necessary in the form of asset and portfolio revaluation on a mark-to model basis for both management and constitutional accounting purposes and this may need some independent validation. Within the last decade the best consumer bank HSBC garnered awards along with soaring rankings. This was just one of those awards won by the HSBC in its excellent performance. Such achievements, rankings, and awards can be directly resulting from HSBCs business strategies. As the last decades success is not ever lasting due to increased competition in the industry facilitated by globalization, trade liberalization rather is become more difficult for the corporation to maintain its leading position through offering the excellence in the service. The company needs to add diverse values to its strategy to establish its position in the target segment. Traditional views on competitive advantage have highlighted such barriers to entry as economies of scale, patent protection, access to capital, and regulated competition. More recent views have highlighted different aspects of competitive advantage, a firms human resources and human capital. New demands facing organizations as a result of heightened competition, globalization, and technological advances have put a premium on creativity and innovation, speed and flexibility, as well as efficiency. The UK government is amending its regulation in an aggressive manner to secure the industry from the future crisis. Operating environments in the economy have continued to improve as the effects of government and central bank policies work through the system and it may be that HSBC has passed, or are about to pass, the bottom of the cycle in the financial markets. Reducing branded activities that present high risks has become a key governing issue for the retail banking industry. After the crunch, the key challenges the banking industry facing is the shortages of capital liquidity/lack of funding, high credit costs, and global price volatility. HSBC may modify its strategy to comply with the economic down-turn and the tightened regulation. Financial projecting and strategy may need careful reappraisal as many expectations supporting HSBCs strategies, plans, budgets and transactions could well need revision and material change might also have to be disclosed under regulatory, statutory or stock exchange obligations. A comprehensive contingency strategy to overcome disaster and business continuity need to be organized to gain a transparent understanding of decision making process in the case of sharp market fall. Plenty effort may need to be considered to establish changes to models, policies, processes and operations in response to lessons learned. HSBC needs to be organized to comply with the next once in a lifetime financial shock. The UK government, which has been widely criticised in the wake of the near collapse of the Northern Rock, wants to reform the current system by imposing new rules and regulation. HSBC may follow a flexible strategy where it can easily adopt the regulation maintaining the higher customer satisfaction level. As the crunch could well shake out further changes in regulation, or prompt further demands for change from stakeholders. Reviewing risk model adequacy by transparency of exposures or by back-testing of model assumptions on asset volatility, correlation, and liquidity may be carried out by HSBC to maintain the safeguard. Reviewing the adequacy of the reporting system, focusing on the transparency, rationality and strength of valuation models; accuracy and quality of underlying reference data; adequacy of controls on model use and maintenance; consistency in the bases and assumptions of risk and valuation models (particularly as assumptions may not reflect recent experience); and effectiveness of risk escalation procedures in the event of serious market volatility or disruption. HSBC may check policies, procedures and availability of skilled people to respond quickly and effectively to serious market volatility or disruption to stem losses (or even make profits). It may also review the adequacy of: Limit framework; reporting framework; Stress-testing procedures. HSBC needs to play their pricing strategies very carefully; as it has generated many hundreds of millions of pounds per annum in revenue from these charges. Review operational capability to handle the situation, with particular focus on: effectiveness of the process, infrastructure along with functional capacity (front, middle, back office) and straight through process/workflow evaluation. Specifically, in response to a competitors pioneering new product introduction, academic research finds many conditions that suggest a greater desirability of immediate market entry while many other conditions suggest a greater desirability of a delayed response. The areas where there is a consensus among decision makers with the academic literature, as well as areas where views differ from that of the literature. Changes and discusses insights gained into the decision making processes of managers for market entry timing decisions. The study can help managers in follower firms achieve greater success in formulating market entry timing strategies by reducing ambiguity in the timing implications of many internal and external conditions, as well as by drawing attention to potential action biases. As the Crucial Official Government and Agency Economic and Financial Data are of highly questionable in terms of validity; HSBC may educate itself about the realities of the marketplace using Alternative Data Sources. Collecting and staying familiar to genuine information about the market can save one much financial grief as well as positioning one for profit. As technology plays an important role in the Banking industry, HSBC may integrate the latest features in their operational strategy to get the competitive advantage. Technology helps the company to introduce differentiation among the industry where it can help the bank to charge extra if that technology adds values to the customers. Customers Satisfaction by providing customized service to establish the bond with the customers so that they can rely on the Banks activities. By redesigning product with additional facilities HSBC can attract the lower and the mid-level customers. Customer-facing business requirements are also more easily accommodated, and if these principles are applied, operational productivity and operating performance can both be raised. The key to success relies on the quality customer interface and experience, with identifying the need to offer people/individuals something they want to be identified with; fits in with their own brand choices; gives them a sense of control; and is easy for them to use at the time that they want to use it. The expectations of the Customers of the Retail Banking industry towards the service providers is getting higher to get their transactional needs right for every time. With minimizing the tolerance level for error, politicians and regulators championing consumer rights and editors being ready to run headlines about banking mistakes, it is a must for HSBC to have resilient, available and effective transactions processing and management systems. These systems and the change environments within which they are maintained must also be capable of meeting the needs of the current and emerging market needs. It is observed that non-banks have achieved high levels of personalisation in their engagement with customers, and new entrants to the retail market such as PayPal have established the competitive standard. Although PayPal is now a bank, it has achieved a financial performance to rival that of a global banks transactions business by providing an interface to bank services, having an effec tive launch strategy and giving to customers the things that they valued: convenience and the ability to keep their financial accounts private. HSBC may create new channel to get the competitive advantage over the industry rivals. At this time all the organisations now understand the importance of knowing their customers as individually and uniquely as possible. This means understanding individual needs and then being able to relate those individual needs to the actual priorities of each customer at any given point in time. Few systems have the ability to provide insight into a customer lifecycle or into current customer priorities as transactions systems do. In mature markets with high barriers to entry and which display stable market share, data mining can be vastly effective in generating new revenue streams and in establishing a differentiated service proposition. Successful data mining will include the use of refined cross-examination tools and a periodic ad hoc analysis along with data warehouse. Success is determined by integrated process management, detailed transactions analysis and alignment with a clear customer segmentation and strategy. Small and Medium Enterprises have become key players in the retail banking industry as its segment it getting bigger day by day with the globalization and increased competition. A careful selection of SMEs and product modification to attract those SMEs can help HSBC may generate increased revenue. As interest rate is a parameter which plays a key role in the banking industry and investment industry, HSBC can tailor its product in a way where the customer will be attracted and communicate the benefit of the product to the target market to gain competitive advantage. Economic profit may be easier to manage though the environment is more competitive than before by simplifying the investment decision and clarifying the accountabilities. Understanding the value of the customers and identify the sacrifice the bank will have to make to that is the vital issue. Investing in understanding and developing this aspect of their service to customers is a parallel, to develop new products, services, markets and pricing strategies. Operational and business interactions may be obtained by bringing the transactions management at the same place, and these scale efficiencies may also be applied to effective risk and incident/ disaster management. Results for the affected banks are definitely substantial which damage to their good will, opportunity loss of potential revenue and also the cost of modification and remediation. For the people involved in managing the incident it was an uncomfortable time: dealing with imperfect and incomplete data while trying to provide coherent and reliable information to many internal and external stakeholders.

Registration and Billing System Essay

1.1 BACKROUND OF THE STUDY Technology nowadays has played a major role in the success of business and helping business to become more competitive in the industry as well as in the economy. Having a broad understanding and a responsible knowledge of information technology and its role in the new economy enables the business to be successful and reach its goals effectively and efficiently. Since the use of manual system on billing is very time consuming, it is usually done and used only by extremely small establishments. This is where the introduction of computer technology integrated with manual procedures started in businesses. This system will deal with the company billings and also keeps a record of stocks. It is not only highly accurate but also saves much time and money over the long term. The main advantages of a computerized billing and accounting system is fast and accurate invoices, credit notes, purchased orders, printing statements and payroll documents are all done automatically. The accounting records are automatically updated; the data is instantly available and can be made available to different users in different locations at the same time. Computerized  accounting programs reduce staff time doing accounts and reduce audit expenses as records are neat, up-to-date and accurate. Billing system can give the company and its clients all of the required da ta that they will need for items related to billing. The major advantage of having billing system in place is that they allow you to effectively manage customer payments. The Royal Residence Condominium is the third project of a proven and tested company, the BESTWAY Construction and Development Corporation, in the field of Real Estate Residential Development. The project was conceptualized to offer an innovative property investment opportunity and set a benchmark in making upscale residence-service provider, a lucrative business. The project was completed in a period of one year, from the ground breaking in September 2010 to receiving its Certificate of Occupancy in September 2011. The Royal Residence Condominium has been established to meet the growing need for convenient, safe and wholesome residence-provider and as a second home to qualified university and college students, board reviewees, and young professionals in the metro City of Baguio. The Royal Condominium is a 7-storey building with 4 commercial units (canteen, mini-mart and stock bar, laundry shop and salon spa) and 12 condominium residential dormitory units. Each unit consists of 12 condotel-like rooms. The Royal Condominium is located along Rimando Road, Aurora Hill- Trancoville, Baguio City. 1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM The study aims to design a computerized registration and billing system for Royal Condominiums. The proposed system will minimize, if not, eliminate the existing problems the company encounters with regards to the registration and billing system. The minimization and or elimination of the existing problems would then make the information more effective, efficient and reliable. It will also facilitate an organized billing system for the user through the implementation of a computer – based information system that can help in the organization’s operations to become more efficient and reliable. The study aims to answer the following questions: 1.2.1 What are the hardware to be used in the billing and registration system? 1.2.2 What are the processes involved in the said system? 1.2.3 How to incorporate the billing and registration system in the existing  setup of the company 1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY 1.3.1 To identify the hardware to be used in the billing and registration system. 1.3.2 To enumerate the processes involved in the billing and registration system. 1.3.3 To know how the billing and registration system be incorporated in the existing set-up of the company. 1.4 IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY The researchers have conducted a study about the application of a Front Office System (FOS) with regards to Billing and Registration to Royal Dormitory and Condominium since there is no existing Information System (IS) yet. Manual transactions of more or less 200 tenants have given rise to problems in processing records. In line with this, this study of application of a FOS will provide an appropriate solution. It will give a faster recording transaction and more accurate records to improve the business process. A shift from manual transaction to an automated one will benefit both the business and the residents for both greater satisfaction and comfort. Being a student is never easy. But this study will make the researchers more patient and prepare them to the fast approaching business world. As students, it will help the researchers be knowledgeable in the operation of a business. Since they are yet to be businesswomen, it is a stepping stone to professionalism. To other researchers , this will serve as a guide and a motivation. Hardships had been a deposit but success is always priceless, indeed. 1.5 SCOPE AND DELIMITATION The research was conducted to be able to give solutions to the problems being encountered by the Royal Residence Condominium-Dormitory. Conducting such research requires a deeper understanding the problems of the business entity. The research covers the problem of the said business entity with regards to their registration and billing system. The researchers proposed an Information system – Registration and Billing System – which can help the entity to lessen errors when it comes to recording transactions among their tenants (College students, reviewers, transients and others) because the entity does not have an existing information system. The proposed system would then require less processes and human errors with the desired output of the entity. More or less 200 tenants occupy the said entity in which it  composes of men and women of with different age brackets. Tenants of the dormitory came from different provinces who are usually college students. The said entity is near universities and also near different business establishments which gave interest to customers to live to the Royal Dormitory and Condominiums. Before the research started, researchers scheduled interviews which were used by the researchers to create a proposed system by conducting an interview with the owner/manager which have great control over the registration and billing system of the company. With the help of the information given by the owner/manager of the entity, researchers were able to understand the main problem of their entity and be able to propose an appropriate Information System with regards to the problem. The researchers collected the needed data and information for their proposal. After gathering such information, problems being encountered by Royal Dormitory and Condominiums were determined and possible solutions were planned. However, different problems may also arise especially if the proposed system of the researches will be effective or might add more errors with regards to the records of the business entity which composes of payment of rent, electric bills, food, violations, and others. The management must make sure that the staff or employee who will control or operate the proposed Information System must have knowledge and be able to know how to handle if ever he/she encounters problem with the system. The proposed system does not cover losses and damages with regards to personal things, money, or gadgets inside the condominium. It only covers the organizing or recording different transactions which are registration of each tenant, their monthly payments of rents or violations and billings of each tenant. The researchers limited the research with these processes to be able to focus on a certain problem which the entity needs at the present. First month of using the information system may result to confusion on how it works and it might also have positive impact with the management and also with the tenants. We cannot also deny the fact that the proposed Information System may arise different problems but as much as possible avoid them. The said research will take five months to finish and be able to help the entity solve their problems and the proposed system has a useful life of 3 years. 1.6 DEFINITION OF TERMS Billing System – It is a combination of software and hardware that receives call detail and service usage information, groups this information for specific accounts or customers, produces invoices, creates reports for management, and records (posts) payments made to customer accounts. Information System – It consists of a collection of people, processes, data, models, technology and partly formalized language, forming a cohesive structure which serves some organizational purpose or function. Registration System – it is a system that allows registrars to make changes to the database in real time. References: Anonymous. (2012). Management snformation systems (MIS). p 3 Billing system. (2009). Billing dictionary. Retrieved from http://www.billingdictionary.com/ Glossary. (2009 – 2013). European Identity. Retreived from http://www.eurid.eu/en/ CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE Online Registration System Another study is the â€Å"Online Registration System† which was conducted by Al-Shaikh in Jordan. According to Al-Shaikh, the problem is the difficulty to register and manage the data of more than 15,000 students who are taking their exams in the universities using the conventional manual system. Using this system, it is hard to communicate between the colleges and the unit that is responsible for the examination of the students. The gathered data can be inaccurate and the fact that not all the colleges fill their students’ data properly or correctly and data storage might be susceptible to corruption at any time. In his study, the proposed system is the Online-Registration system but it is just a sub-system of Web Portal. Web Portal is defined as a system that presents information from diverse sources in a unified way. The proposed system is a 3-Tier web-based. 3-Tier Architecture is a Client/Server Architecture. In registration system, as a result, after entering the student data to the system, user can have the confirmation to assure the students was enrolled into the exam and the exam receipt to be given to the student. For the reporting subsystem, it will be easily know how many students applied for the exam and the fees required for  each student. Last is the repository subsystem where the user can download the files necessary to manage the activities. Computerized Billing for Time Improves Client Communication and Firm Profitability As cited in the article entitled â€Å"Computerized Billing for Time Improves Client Communication and Firm Profitability† by Murphy (1996), he stated that, accounting firms can improve their profitability and relation with clients by automating client billing with computers. Accounting firms can use personal computer as an economical means of computerizing the billing process. A Computerized Billing System allows accounting firms to more effectively manage their employee’s productivity and give them the means to analyse the hours available and hours billed of each employee. A Computerized Billing System provides more control over accounts receivable and client work processes. Computer in Today’s World Philippines According to the article entitled, â€Å"Computer In Today’s World Philippines† by Bitter (1995), stated that the function performed by the computer division of various organizations has become identified as data processing program expedite many business functions such as the accounts payable system. They keep records of vendor’s number, special accounts and dates of payments. There are many advantages in using an accounts payable package: all information remains in one done automatically; calculations are easily made; the time involved to do work is greatly reduced. Information to Computer and Information System According to the article entitled â€Å"Information to Computer and Information System† by Syzmanski (1998), Computers are used in business for many tasks that can be grouped into category called data processing. Data processing includes tasks such as word processing, billing, and assembling number and facts associated with general office functions, such as order processing, inventory and billing. Billing System A research about Billing System was conducted by various students from International School of Informatics and Management in Jaipur. This study, therefore, is closely-related to our topic which is Billing and Registration System. According to their case study, there are several problems with the existing system the business uses that must be worked on and improved. That’s why they decided to make and propose some solutions for the said system. The researchers – Anil Kumar Anjana, Bhaiya Lal Anjana, and Saurabh Jai – figured out that time (to retrieve and store data) is a common problem with the existing system the company uses. The system also requires a lot of paper works and even a small transaction requires many papers to be filled. Thus, any fortuitous event (such as fire and such) can easily destroy all the data of the organization. A loss of even a single paper or a document can lead to a burdensome situation for the business, because all of the papers are interrelated. Another problem states that the data cannot be shared or utilized by different persons at the same time. Actual movement of the data must be done in order to make it usable by several persons at any time. To sum it all up, these problems should be solved by altering or improving its processes. Time is always of the essence, and it is very important in businesses. Just by the mere identification and analysis of the problems being showed in the existing system, it would cost the business itself MORE once these are not solved. They also conducted a feasibility study with regards to their proposed system. They considered the technical, behavioural, and economic feasibilities of the study. They identified things from software to the hardware that the system might be using once it is implemented. In terms of behavioral feasibility, they studied or evaluated the behavior of the end users of the system which may affect the system’s implementation. Some people are resistant to changes. So, a good estimate should be made on how strong a reaction the user staff is likely to have towards the development of a computerized system. As the aim of the system is only to satisfy the information needs, no employees will lose their position by the proposed system. In fact, the proposed system will help the organization in reducing  the voluminous work involved. With the economic feasibility involved, the procedure is to determine the benefits/advantages and savings that are expected from the system and compare it with the costs to be generated once implemented. If the benefits outweigh costs, such as manpower and hardware and software costs, then it is said to be that the system is approved and ready to be designed and implemented. But, if otherwise happens, wherein costs are greater that the benefits, further alterations should be made in order to make the proposed system a better one. Design and Implementation of Accounting Models for Services in Agent-Based Information Systems According to Rupert Rockinger and Hubert Baumeister, the fast growing field of electronic commerce brings today’s applications to their limits. Information systems are now being used to further automate the processes. A fully automated process can also help busy users who want to spend as little time as possible with a single transaction. A system capable of accounting can return the needed product without requiring any further attention by the user. In the study of Rockinger and Baumeister the design and implementation of the basic agent framework billing system (BABSy) is described. It includes an overview about payment models in everyday life, parts of the system that are already being used today, and where BABSy takes its place in this context, and describes the architecture of BABSy and its implementation using the FollowMe framework. The term ’service’ is used in the study instead of merchandise since in the electronic world goods are often virtual. Buying information for example can be considered the service of supplying this data. With all the benefits of agent technology in mind, one would expect that there are many solutions available for accounting in commercial agent frameworks. This, however, is not the case at this time. Mostly this is due to the fact that agents cover only a certain aspect of the behavior model. To identify the participating agents let’s take a look at a conventional transaction. Say, for example, you buy a meal at your favorite restaurant. Two parties are obvious: you, the paying customer, and the selling restaurant owner. The third party in the interaction is a banking service that provides the guarantee for the payment used. When paying cash this is the central bank of a country that guarantees the value of your bank notes; for credit card payment this is the cred it card company; and when paying by check this will be bank that issued the check. Either way  there is always a third party involved that both others must recognize and trust. So within the agent framework three independent components are needed. One for the provider, one for the customer and a third that represents a banking service. In this paper the design of the accounting system BABSy for services in an agent community was presented. This can greatly improve the value of electronic commerce applications in the future.The design of the BABSy core components covers the most important payment models while still leaving room for further functionality. Most components can be extended for much greater complexity if desired. Online Bill Payment 2.0 Digital financial transactions have caused the increase in consumer convenience and its ease of use that was evidenced by a Consumer Trends Survey conducted by Fisherv Inc. in 2011. Despite the former, e-billing and e-statement users reduced bad debt by 50 percent and at the same time has reduced the reconciliation costs by 40 percent. Electronic billing also has reduced the use of paper, meaning no postage and no wastes. Another upgrade in the digital financial transactions is the personalization of online payment. In one study, payments increased more than 350 percent payments were made with personalized tools compared to other Web-based payment systems (source: confidential client data). According to Mark Snow, the main reason why personalized online billing is more effective than that of the others is the intrigue it creates in the minds of the users. The moment they see that personalized link to access their own website, curiosity kicks in and they want to see more. The ease of access and the convenience that regular online billing providers are doubled by the personalization of the existing systems by directly integrating the billing and payment system to the provider’s account that increases efficiency and reduces the time is called the consuming manual payment processing. He also cited in the article the steps taken in the personalized online payment which starts by sending a personal notification that directly goes to the patient via letter or email. In that letter, there would be an existing link and password that would lead them to the patient’s personal website where the existing personal information and the services the patient has undergone. In the said link, the patient can already pay their bills via credit card, debit card,  or ACH on their account and can even update their personal information. And with just one click of a button, their payment is processed, confirmation of payment is sent to both the provider and th e patient, and the money is already deposited into the provider’s account. References: Al-Shaikh, A. M. (n.d.) Online registration system. Retreive from www.cscjournals.org Anjana, A.K., Anjana, B. L., & Jain, S. (n.d.) Billing system. International school of informatics and management. Jaipur. Snow, M. (2012). Online bill payment 2.0. Health Management Technology, 33(10), 18-19. Bitter, Gary G. (1995). Computer in Today’s World Philippine. The McMillan Com. Smith, Murphy L. (1996). Computerized billing for time improves client communication and firm profitability. (Management of an accounting practice) the CPA journal Syzmanski, Robert A. (1998). Introduction to computer and information systems. merrill publishing co. R. Rockinger. (1999). Design and implementation of accounting models for services in agent-based information systems. Master’s thesis. Institut f ¨ur Informatik. Universit ¨at M ¨unchen, M ¨unchen. Germany. CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY 3.1 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Quantitative research methodology was used for this study. Quantitative research is a formal, objective, and systematic process. In situations where little is known, like in the case of Royal Residence Condominium-Dormitory, quantitative method was used in conducting the interviews, to focus groups, and others. Data based on the interview were used by the researchers to find out problems of the existing system used by the said company. Once the problem has been identified by the researchers, then, the quantitative approach will be used to measure to what extent this problem may have to the company and its customers. The said method also aims to answer questions with regards to the â€Å"how many†, and â€Å"how much† of a problem. 3.2 RESEARCH TOOLS Interview The researchers interviewed the marketing officer from the accounting office  of the Royal Residence Condominium-Dormitory. Researchers asked for the information about the company and the existing system the company is currently using and other relevant information that are useful to the study. The actual interview was recorded by the researchers. Observation It has been observed that the administration keeps a lot of paper files. In addition, manual transaction is very evident. These caused problems, and in effect, the researchers proposed the Registration and Billing System. Journals The researchers used some published journals and other related research papers for reference and for comparability purposes. 3.3 EXISTING SYSTEM Currently, the Royal Residence is utilizing the Microsoft Excel as its system. This software is a spread sheet application developed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language. Using excel, the company is able to keep a record of its tenants. One unit has its own excel file where every tenant has his/her own worksheet where his/her amount due can be found. In that worksheet, the utilities payable of the tenant and even the other payables like penalties/ interest are already computed just by entering the formula. Since the system can perform the calculation, the company can determine the total amount due of each tenant by using the functions of excel. In this system, the company still performs the manual input. 3.4 PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED WITH THE EXISTING SYSTEM During the interview session with Miss Maria Vilma T. Lerpido, Marketing Officer from the Accounting Management of The Royal Residence Condominium-Dormitory, we asked her if they have been facing some problems with the registration and billing system they are using in the business. And as evidenced by the interview we conducted and through our observation, we have figured out some complications with the system. As for the royal residence condominium-dormitory, time is one of the problems they are encountering with their system. We could say that it is  time-consuming because manual input of data is being practiced. In addition to this, we, the researchers, have noticed that the records of the tenants in each unit in their condominium-dormitory are being individually filed in excel. Each excel file contains the records of the each tenant in different worksheets. One file is equivalent to one unit, with several rooms, in the condominium-dormitory wherein it contains its corresponding tenants’ records. The file consists of the tenants’ payment dues – from the monthly rental up to the electric and water bills a tenant has incurred. Computation of the penalty dues and other expenses by the tenant is being performed by the Microsoft Excel itself. Thus, once an authorized personnel looks for a tenant’s records, it would take time for him searching the name from the list of the documents saved in the computer. So, what if all of the tenants – more or less 200 – would pay their dues at the same time, would the staff do the computations that fast and easy considering that s/he will be accommodating numbers of customers in just a short period of time? The system must be developed to improve its performance, less cost, less pressure, and with that, the personnel can just simply look for the records with the already-computed charges, then, it can already be printed as a physical evidence of the tenant’s accounts. CHAPTER IV RESULTS AND FINDINGS 4.1 PROPOSED SYSTEM One of the advantages of the system is that, it is time saving. It is created in order to save time creating and sending invoices. It has low mistake risks, secured from typographical errors, miscalculations, and erroneous invoicing to the customer. Another is it provides a lot of different features. You can adapt billing program to yourself considering specifics of your business. For example you can define when, to whom, and how often you want to send recurring invoices. It is a cost effective way to protect a record through a centralized application process. Renewal and subsequent changes concerning ownership details can also be handled using this centralized process. And registration ensures a single, consistent approach to monitoring quality service. It gives confidence that all tenants have achieved the same essential levels of safety. For the disadvantages of the  system, Registration and Billing System would be costly. A small business may not afford this. If in case it can purchase, return of investment would take longer. Purchasing this system is a costly investment. Sometimes, the money paid could be used to other greater income generating investments, with higher assurance of return. When the system is implemented, there will be a reduction of labor force. There will be less job opportunities for human resource. And in some instances, the labor force would be too dependent with the system, and considering that the system is not 100 % guaranteed free from error. When the labor force doesn’t personally check the entered information, an overstatement or understatement of accounts may happen. Though, this is one-in-a-million case, the system still possesses accuracy. The system still follows the input data. Once they are mistakenly done, the system will also provide an incorrect output. For example, when the tenant/administration entered a wrong tenant number for a specific payment, then the system will follow what was entered. It cannot detect such an error. The system is restricted to cash payment only. Credit cards and bank transactions are not involved. 4.2 DATA FLOW DIAGRAM 4.2.1 CONTEXT DIAGRAM Registration and Billing System consists three entities – tenant, administration, and accounting. In this system, it starts with the tenant entity wherein it gives details that are needed by other entities. Once the tenant gives those details, the system will work on it in order to produce outputs from the entities in the said system. 4.2.2 DIAGRAM 0 Diagram 0 is a confounded version of the context diagram that shows the major processes done in the system. The start of these processes is to classify the old and new tenants. If tenants are new, a new profile is created, saved in a data store, and the tenant details are used by the system to proceed to  the next processes – create statement, apply payment, and lastly, create reports needed by the administration and accounting entities. On the other hand, once old tenants are sorted, processes would already follow (same with the preceding processes with a new tenant) 4.2.3.1 DIAGRAM 1 PROCESS 3 Process 3 of Diagram 1 revealed three further internal processes – find tenant records (3.1), classify dues (3.2), and compute payment due (3.3). The processes are related to payments – past dues, city services, and rent payments. They have to produce statement of accounts to tenants and invoice details to accounting entity, and the cycle continues. 4.2.3.2 DIAGRAM 1 PROCESS 4 Process 4 of Diagram 1 revealed three further processes – record payment (4.1), create cash receipts (4.2), and update account (4.3). They produced and updated accounts to the involved entities, tenant and accounting, respectively. 4.3 DATA DICTIONARY ENTITY TENANT Name: Tenant Description: One that pays rent to use or occupy land, a building, or other property owned by another. Input Data Flow: Statement of account, Cash receipts, Tenant code Output Data Flow: Personal details, Payment details ADMINISTRATON Name: Administration Description: A body of persons who manage. Input Data Flow: Tenant Profile, Report Details Output Data Flow: Tenant Number ACCOUNTING Name: Accounting Description: The system of recording and summarizing business and financial transaction and analyzing, verifying, and reporting the results. Input Data Flow: Invoice Details, Tenant Accounts, Updated Accounts Output Data Flow: Financial Statement CHAPTER V SUMMARY, RECOMMENDATION, AND CONCLUSION 5.1 SUMMARY This project involves information system specifically, registration and billing system. The goal is to make the registration and billing of Royal Residence Condominium-Dormitory easier and more accurate. This has been done by improving their existing system through automation of the said activities. Before, their registration and billing system is manually-operated and it is time-consuming. The research covers the problem of the said business entity with regards to their registration and billing  system which can help the entity to lessen errors when it comes to recording transactions among their tenants (College students, reviewers, transients and others) because the entity does not have an existing information system. The proposed system would then require less processes and human errors with the desired output of the entity. 5.3 RECOMMENDATION Registration and Billing System is effective. However, some recommendations are advised. The researchers recommend further study of the system. It is believed that longer period of research would provide more information that would let users maximize the ability of the system. It is also recommended that the visual presentation of the system be improved. For validity purposes, a good visual presentation would let the users input the correct data. This will reduce human error. The system covers only the registration of the tenants themselves. Registration of all belongings, particularly those gadgets and appliances, is therefore recommended for safety purposes. In addition, the system is limited to cash payment only. As a result, the researchers recommend that credit and bank transactions be included. The researchers also recommend making an assessment of the tenant’s point of view about the system. It is important to acknowledge this since Royal Residence exists because of the m. 5.3 CONCLUSION This study aimed at improving the existing system of Royal. The results of this study indicated both positive results and negative results. It can be concluded that the findings were consistent with their results. Furthermore, this study found that the registration and billing system helped the administration and accounting department for the safe keeping of their documents. In addition, the study also revealed some obstacles that the entity had to face when they applied the system. These obstacles may be summarized as costly, labor force will be lessened and it is not free from human error. However, in the long run, the system is more preferred. This is supported by the earlier findings. To sum it up, elimination of manual transactions benefited the company. The proposed system made transactions faster and more accurate. It is far more advantageous when compared to manual transaction and the existing system by the business-Excel. Thus, introduction of Registration and Billings Syste m is effective and yield the expected positive results.

J.M Coetzee Foe Paper

Then adds, â€Å"But perhaps it is the doing ot Providence that Friday tinds himselt on an island under a lenient master, rather than in Brazil, under the planter's lash, or in Africa, where the forests teem with cannibals† (24). Here, Cruso defends Friday and highlights the unfair ways of the slavery that removed Friday from his homeland. Cruso even calls himself a â€Å"lenient† master, demonstrating that he does care for Friday. This affection corroborates the idea that Cruso and Friday have a father-son relationship, but there is also strong evidence to prove that Cruso sees Friday as a lave.Coetzee portrays this relationship in a multifaceted way, that leads to the speculation of two conclusions; one conclusion being that Friday is like a slave to Cruso, another conclusion is that Friday is like a son to Crusoe. Coetzee creates Friday as a key narrative tool, which Coetzee uses to hammer home a broader motif: a connection between Fridays relationship with Cruso and apartheid. However, little is known about this central character except for his slave identity and speech deficiency.The reader is told that when Friday was a child, he was taken by the lavers, and that they cut off his tongue to â€Å"prevent him from ever telling his story: who he was, where his home lay, how it came about that he was taken† (23). Thus the mutilation of Friday's tongue ensures that his story remains buried within himself. The relationship between Cruso and Friday seems to strongly resemble the relationship between the oppressors and the oppressed in South Africa during apartheid.Friday, silenced by an unknown entity, represents the people that have no opportunity to speak out, but hold the stories that tell the tale of apartheid from a ifferent viewpoint. But these people cannot speak. They, like Friday, are silenced. They are the ones that need to be heard. Struck by the urgency of Friday's silence, Susan admits, â€Å"To tell my story and be silent on F riday's tongue is no better than offering a book for sale with pages in it quietly left empty† (67).Susan believes that her story is useless without input from Friday. This directly correlates to the story of South Africa, and it being useless without the moving stories of the oppressed people. Friday shows some sign of rebellion when Cruso becomes ill with the fever. Here, Friday makes no effort to help Susan take care of Cruso. Fridays motives are unclear here, but it could very well be his remorse finally rearing its ugly head, finding a way to fght the oppression that has chained him all of his life.Nevertheless, immediately after Cruso recovers, Friday is restored to being a servant mindlessly serving a master. In South Africa, the oppressed people were afraid to take a stand against the government, Just like how Friday is tentative to take a stand gainst Cruso. Friday waits until Cruso is week with the flu, and then makes a sly, seemingly accidental attempt at revenge. C oetzee views this inability to act out and stand up as a major detriment to both Friday and the oppressed people of South Africa.Fridays conformity and silence runs in tandem with the oppressed society of South Africa at the time that Coetzee wrote Foe. Cruso represents the oppressor, only teaching Friday what he needs to know, never more. The lack of disclosure and freedom that Friday experiences throughout the novel is characteristic of apartheid. Coetzee uses this relationship as a vessel to deliver the subtle yet powerful comparison of slavery to South Africa.

DURAND Surname Meaning and Family History

From the Latin name Durandus meaning strong and enduring, the Durand surname comes from the Old French  durant, meaning enduring, derived from the Latin duruo,  meaning to harden or make strong. This surname is believed to have evolved simultaneously in several different cultures and may have been used to describe someone who is steadfast or, possibly, stubborn. Durand may also be an Anglicized form of the Hungarian Durà ¡ndi, a habitational name for someone from a place called Durà ¡nd, in former Szepes county. Surname Origin: Latin,  French, Scottish, English Alternate Surname Spellings:  DURANT, DURRAND, DURANTE, DURRANT, DURRANTE, DURRAN, DURRANCE, DURRENCE Famous People with the DURAND  Surname Asher Brown Durand  - American painterWilliam F. Durand -  American aeronautical engineerPeter Durand  - British inventor of the tin canElias Durand - American botanist and pharmacist Where is the DURAND  Surname Most Common? The Durand surname is most common in France according to Forebears, ranking as the 2nd most common surname in the country. WorldNames PublicProfiler also supports this, showing fairly even distribution of the Durand surname in departments across France. It is also somewhat common in other French-influenced countries, including Dominica, New Caledonia, Monaco, French Polynesia, Montserrat, Haiti, Peru and Canada.   Genealogy Resources for the Surname DURAND Meanings of Common French SurnamesUncover the meaning of your French last name with this free guide to the meanings and origins of common French surnames. How to Research French AncestryIf you are one of those people who have avoided delving into your French ancestry due to fears that the research would be too difficult, then wait no more! France is a country with excellent genealogical records, and it is very likely that you will be able to trace your French roots back several generations once you understand how and where the records are kept. Durand  Family Crest - Its Not What You ThinkContrary to what you may hear, there is no such thing as a Durand  family crest or coat of arms for the Durand surname.  Coats of arms are granted to individuals, not families, and may rightfully be used only by the uninterrupted male line descendants of the person to whom the coat of arms was originally granted. The Duran  Surname  DNA ProjectIndividuals with the Duran  surname, and variants such as Durand, are invited to participate in this group DNA project in an attempt to learn more about Durand family origins. The website includes information on the project, the research done to date, and instructions on how to participate. DURAND  Family Genealogy ForumThis free message board is focused on descendants of Durand  ancestors around the world. FamilySearch - DURAND  GenealogyExplore over 2  million results from digitized  historical records and lineage-linked family trees related to the Durand surname on this free website hosted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. DURAND  Surname Mailing ListFree mailing list for researchers of the Durand  surname and its variations includes subscription details and a searchable archives of past messages. DistantCousin.com - DURAND  Genealogy Family HistoryExplore free databases and genealogy links for the last name Durand. GeneaNet - Durand  RecordsGeneaNet includes archival records, family trees, and other resources for individuals with the Durand  surname, with a concentration on records and families from France and other European countries. The Durand  Genealogy and Family Tree PageBrowse genealogy records and links to genealogical and historical records for individuals with the Durand  surname from the website of Genealogy Today. ----------------------- References: Surname Meanings Origins Cottle, Basil.  Penguin Dictionary of Surnames. Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1967. Dorward, David.  Scottish Surnames. Collins Celtic (Pocket edition), 1998. Fucilla, Joseph.  Our Italian Surnames. Genealogical Publishing Company, 2003. Hanks, Patrick and Flavia Hodges.  A Dictionary of Surnames. Oxford University Press, 1989. Hanks, Patrick.  Dictionary of American Family Names. Oxford University Press, 2003. Reaney, P.H.  A Dictionary of English Surnames. Oxford University Press, 1997. Smith, Elsdon C.  American Surnames. Genealogical Publishing Company, 1997. Back to  Glossary of Surname Meanings Origins