Can you write a simple program for me?

Hi,

I am looking for somebody to put together a simple bit of software for me.

I work from my home office, while staff are in my Retail Stores. We have broadband access, and a website, and have space on our website server to store a database or something.

In store, staff collect orders from customers for products that are out of stock. At the moment it is all on paper, and is an absolute nightmare that involves me piling the kids into the car to drive to the store to pick up bits of paper etc etc. Yes I could ask them to email orders, but that is just as difficult due to the lack of time that staff have, and their incompetencey with regards to getting through their current workload.

I have asked local software writers and they all think it is too hard, but I think it should be very easy. I am after -
* A simple software/database/online program, that can either be stored on our website server, or we would be willing to look into a remote server situation.
* I want it to be safe from incompetence, in other words, I want the fields to have simple data entry boxes, so staff cannot change what has been entered, change the database, or do anything to mess the whole lot up.
* It would be sitting online, and staff or I could log in using our own passwords.
* When logging in, we would all see a list that shows the order number, the customer name, the brief of what they have ordered, and the latest comment. We can click on an order to open it up to see full details.
NB: It would be great, although not essential, to be shown what stage a customer order is at, you will see what I mean in the list of what attributes I want to have in this database, but it would be great to see on this initial list whether a customer order is up to the stage of waiting for the customer to collect the order, or still waiting for stock etc etc). But as I said, this is a nicety, if it complicates the database too much it can be left off.
* When taking an order staff would enter in
~ the date,
~ customer name,
~ phone,
~ type a description of what they are after including colours, sizes and quantities (note I do not need this to be linked to a product database, unless it was a very easy thing to do, otherwise just having the staff member type in these details fresh each time would do. As a guide, we currently use MYOB Retail Manager to track inventory),
~ the date they want it by
* Then the other fields that can be entered as the order progresses are -
~ when a customer pays they go in and mark how much they have paid and the date.
~ When I order the product in to arrive to the store, I mark when it was ordered.
~ I can mark the estimated date of arrival.
~ If a customer picks up the product, a staff member can mark off the date the order was picked up, and then activate it to be a closed order (as in no further comments to be made, and maybe change the colour of the order listing so it clearly shows as being closed).
~ When a staff member contacts a customer it can be marked as to how they contacted them (phone, left a message, email) the date, and what the outcome was (ie: Customer coming in Saturday 19/4).
~ This is the tricky part - I want to be able to mark an alert on an order, and staff to do the same. So for example, if I log in and see that 4 Baby Jumpers were ordered by customer order number 101, I can log in to that customer order and write the comment that they won't be available for 4 weeks. I want to be able to check a box, so that next time a staff member views the list of orders there is a red flag or something to indicate that I want them to open up that order and read the comments. That way they will know that they need to let the customer know of the delay. Now once they have phoned the customer they might like to tell me that the customer is wanting to change their order, they can do so by changing the description of what the customer wants to order, but they also need to alert me in case I don't notice the change, so they can check a box to make a green flag (or something like that) show on that order. So now next time I look at the list of customer orders, I will see a green flag on that order and I know to have a look at it.

So that is it. I don't need it to be linked to any database, we can enter in all details as they happen. It seems so simple to me, and I don't want to spend a fortune on something so simple. Is it possible or am I totally missing an important point?

If anybody here is interested in doing such a database, could you contact me?

Linda.

Hi Linda,

I can do your requirements and here's my online resume
for you to see my capabilities.

http://baguiomotors.com/mark/resume.html

Based on your requirements, I have already developed something
like that and it just needs customization(design and core) to fit
on your needs. I can give you a demo site(which I did) that is
most likely you want in a private message. I can be reach
thru email, instant messengers and phone.

Email: maspiras@gmail.com or mcaspiras@yahoo.com
Instant Messengers:

YM: mcaspiras
MSN: maspiras@hotmail.com
SKYPE: bnetweb

My rates: US$ 20/hour

Freebies: I can offer 1 year free web hosting (fast server).

Looking forward to hear from you soon.

PS: References to my past work are available by request.

Best regards,
Mark

Linda,

It sounds like the software you need is fairly straight forward and doable. I own a software consulting company that specializes in small business, web based, multi-user software which is exactly what you described. I'd love to help you get rid of all those pesky slips of paper :-) Give me a call and we can talk more about your needs.

Sincerely,

Eric Scott
Dolphin Micro
303-875-5892

Thank you everybody, but guess what? I asked some women in business and they told me about Google Docs. It is a free exel spreadsheet. Although it doesn't do everything described above, it does most of it, I set it up in minutes and it is FREE. So I was really pleased. And yes it proved my point, an online database doesn't take up mega drive space, nor is it hard to do. If only more of the IT people I spoke to would think out side the square!

But thank you for the replies, and I will keep you in mind if I want something similar but more customised.

Linda.

Babyshop,

Google docs is an excellent tool! But it is very different from what you were asking for. Perhaps it is more your pace to fit the growth and size of your business. If you find in the future you need a more flexible, true order tracking system do not forget about devshed and good luck!