Simplified enterprise resource planning system

Abstract

Simplified Enterprise Resource Planning is a management software developed in Java [1]. It is composed of a client and a server. The server encloses an embedded Derby relational database [2] which stores all information in the system while preserving its structure according to a schema. Additionally the server permits to specify the port at which it will listen for client's connections and to start or stop itself. The client uses Java's Swing technology to create a simple yet elegant interface focused on efficiency. The features of the client include: creation, modification and deletion of clients, products, suppliers, discounts, quotations, sales and purchases. In addition, only the administrator user can create, modify or delete users as well as create or restore backups of the database. When creating operations such as quotations, sales and purchases only the identifiers from the products, clients and other data objects involved are required, the rest of the information is obtained from the profile of the respective objects in the database. For selecting these identifiers proper search functionalities are included with which objects can be searched and loaded based on their characteristics even if their internal identifier is not known. Moreover, the system keeps track of the product's stock and when sales or purchases are created stock is adjusted accordingly in order to ensure the consistency of these operations. Additionally there is a unique functionality on quotations and sales to search, and apply if available, an efficient combination of discounts for the current operation based on the products it involves. Another important characteristic of the system is that it is self-contained and ready to work out of the box. Furthermore, the server's database is already initialized with the tables and fields required by the client and it is presented with empty except for the administrator's user credentials. Finally, the only requirement of the system to run is to have installed the Java Runtime Environment [3], which is available in all major operating systems including Microsoft Windows series [4], Linux [5] and Mac [6]. This enhances the versatility of the product allowing it to run natively on any operating system indistinctly.