Information Technology and You 161Database Sof tware
Adatabase is a collection of data stored in such a way that the user may create
and identify relationships among data. For example, a mailing list of one’s cus-
tomers might contain information about each customer ’s purchases and every-
thing about the sales transactions, including the prices the customer paid, who
sold it to him, how she paid, and so forth. This information can be retrieved in
a variety of ways usually specified by the user at the time of execution. The
user might want a list of all customers that purchased a specific product be-
tween January and May or perhaps an aggregate list of all products a customer
has ordered and purchased from a particular salesperson. The number of pos-
sible combinations and permutations and ways one may view the data is limited
only by the collection of the data and the imagination of the user. Databases
are discussed in more detail in Chapter 16, Information Technology and
the Firm.
Personal Finance Sof tware
There are several software packages that allow individuals or small businesses
to manage finances, such as paying bills either electronically or by check, and
monitor investments. The packages are fairly sophisticated in that they provide
for secure communications for electronic bill paying and other online banking
services such as account reconciliation, as well as the importing of current
stock-market quotes. The most widely used package is Quicken and, for small
businesses, Quickbooks. Microsoft Money is also a comparable and popular
package.
Exhibit 5.5 displays a sample screen that is used to enter bills to be paid.
As you can see, the user input metaphor is a check, the very same document the
user would use if he or she were paying the bill manually. The difference using
Quicken is that data is collected for a host of other purposes such as:
- Paying bills.
- Tracking paid bills by category for budgeting purposes.
- Tracking payments for tax purposes.
- Reconciling the checking account.
The system has the capability to keep track of more than one account and to
make interaccount transfers.
Project Management Sof tware
Often a manager or entrepreneur is faced with the challenge of managing the
many details concerned with a project, be it constructing a building or pulling
together a financial plan. With fairly simple projects, paper and pencil or a
simple spreadsheet might be an adequate tool for coordinating the people and
steps involved in a project. But, as the project gets complex, involving, say,