Requirements and Design

Required Expertise

• Different Backgrounds
  • Yogesh was an Accounting and Finance Major with an MBA in India, but standards are different
  • Peter was an English Major with Accounting 101
  • Sean was a C.S. Major with no accounting experience.
• Needed to learn Accounting
  • Basic Accounting Lessons were provided by Accountants for the General Public Interest for profit and non-profit organizations.
  • Beyond the basics, independent study was required.

Design Constraints

• Platform (see below)
• Accounting Requirements (see Requirements Document)
• Reporting:
  • must be GAAP compliant if at all possible
  • easily customizable
  • multiple formats (PDF, HTML, XML, plain text, etc.)

Platforms

• Must work on minimal hardware: the hardware at most non-profits is donated and out-of-date.
• Client: should work on all Operating Systems.

  -we decided on a web-based approach

• Server: it has been specified that it must run on Linux, however we are also developing for Windows.

Usability

• WHA Participants consult on this matter and act as test users.
• Familiar interfaces common to other accounting software (we tested many other accounting software packages before development began).
• On screen help and wizards for new users
• Multiple language support
• Browser independence, focusing on the main browsers (Mozilla, Opera, and IE as a closed-source afterthought).

Design

• For specific design information see the following documents:
  • ER Diagram
  • UML Class Diagram