Current Process

For this term project, I have selected a current “silo” process from my church.  It involves the lack of a church management system at Faith Community Chapel .  The methods of this setup are provided by what the church currently use. The chapel can value significantly from the process improvement through management of their data.  Currently the chapel is overwhelmed by technology decisions and the management of data. The introduction of the databases in the present times for connecting the organizational departments and the management of the data is surely appealing to almost all the businesses in the present times. Tending to people is the core authority, not database management, but data exists nonetheless and has to be managed in an effective way for the chapel’s benefit. 

Chapel Data

The Chapel’s data consists of numbers or dollars, demographics or marketing contacts.  For Faith Community Chapel, the data consists of people who attend the church regularly and newcomers.  This data is efficient to provide the required information about the business process of the Church to the newcomers and also to the regular visitors of the Church. This data helps to serve the chapel in a number of ways:

1.  Shows the names of members
2. Displays their picture
3. Give details about the family members who attend as well
4. Shows the member’s contribution to the community

Absolute Findings

Currently Faith Community Chapel has no enterprise system in place to manage the chapel’s data. There are two main employees: The Secretary and Assistant Secretary, who are solely responsible for the management of the critical data of the Church. Through my observations, this is currently what the chapel is doing:

1. When new members join the church they are written down in the daily chapel readings before the start of church
2. Bills are presented to the chapel’s community board of trustees for payment, after the community board approves then checks are written by hand.  There is no financial accounting system in place.
3. Databases are set up to keep track of personal offerings.
4. No statements are presented to the members regarding how much they have paid in offerings.
5. No way of keeping up with the families except through the database that are not integrated with any other systems.

There is no one system that the chapel is using that will allow the Pastor to log on and gain valuable information needed to help run the church ministries nor allow for the church to keep proper financial accounting to print end of year reports.  The church could benefit from process improvements just in these few areas alone. 

Church Business Processes

The business process of the Chapel follows the traditional viewpoint of conducting business.

      The focus will be on the following business processes:

• Locate virtuosity of membership
• Keep up with size of families
• Keep up with birthdays
• Keep up with anniversaries
• Keep up with educations and graduation
• Give School Supplies
• Distribute Food Baskets for specific holidays and charity’s
• Distribute Toys
• Baptisms
• Weddings
• Financial Management
• Payroll
• IRS Reporting
• Travel
• Supplies
• Bills

AS-IS System

            The current system is almost completely designed manually.  The Secretary in charge has made simple databases to enter new member’s names.  The system is not balanced with any other databases that the chapel currently uses.  There is no church computer management structure in place.  At the end of year, the bank needs the financial statement from faith community chapel, and the pastor calls the accountant to enter all financial transactions into an accounting program.  Financial statements are produced from these transactions for the bank.  Every process has their own database with no emergence of information.

Gap analysis

Capabilities gap

            After the analysis of the issues of the organization, which is lack of the church management system, it could be understood that there are several departments in the organization. The capabilities gap of the church could be described as follows:

Category	Present state	Desired state	Identified gap	Corrective actions	Priority (L,M,H)
Organizational	When any new member joins the church, the names of the members are written down in daily readings of the chapel.	It is desired by the Church to input the details of the members in the database and link all the departments through the common database.	Unavailability of the computerized database management.	Implement the computerized database (Ismail & King, 2014).	H
Organizational	The bills are presented to the community board of the trustees of the chapel afterwards the approval by the community board and then the checks are written by hand.	The chapel intends to provide the finance management for the board of the trustee and then maintain the record of the payments in financial database.	Unavailability of the finance database of the chapel	Implement and manage the database of the accounts using financial accounting system (Libby, 2017).	M
Management	There is no financial accounting system in place.	Manage the financial sector of the chapel using the modern technologies and information system.	Unavailability of the accounting information system.	Implement the accounting information system for managing the financial records in the database (Collier, 2015).	M
Management	There is no link among the databases of the various departments for allowing the quick access of the data by any authorized members	Manage the efficient connection among the various databases of the organization.	Unavailability of the connection among the various database of the departments.	Implement the link among the several databases of the organization (Maskell, Baggaley & Grasso, 2016).	L
Organizational	No statements are presented to the members regarding how much they have paid in offerings.	Manage the payment records of the members regarding the payments made and accepted.	The organization could not provide the acknowledgement of the payment that has been made to the chapel.	Provide the acknowledgement to the members of the organization who are joining and manage the record of the offerings gained.	H
Management	No way of keeping up with the families except through the database that are not integrated with any other systems.	Allow the managing of the members details all through the organization and allow the authorized members to access the data	The Chapel could not help with the details of the members in any immediate situation because they have to search each of the implemented databases for finding any particular member.	Link all the database of the organization and manage the databases on the cloud service of any vendor (Schaltegger & Burritt, 2017).	L
Organizational	Unavailability of the system for allowing the pastor to log on and obtain the gain valuable information needed to help run the church ministries nor allow for the church to keep proper financial accounting to print end of year reports.	Provide the ability to the pastor to monitor the business of the chapel and manage the finance accounting of the chapel	The chapel have to depend on the bank for gaining the financial records of all the transaction.	Develop the adequate system for connecting the pastor with all the information as well as the records of the Chapel.	H

To-Be process diagram

References

Collier, P. M. (2015). Accounting for managers: Interpreting accounting information for decision making. John Wiley & Sons.

Ismail, N. A., & King, M. (2014). Factors influencing the alignment of accounting information systems in small and medium sized Malaysian manufacturing firms. Journal of Information Systems and Small Business, 1(1-2), 1-20.

Libby, R. (2017). Accounting and human information processing. In The Routledge Companion to Behavioural Accounting Research (pp. 42-54). Routledge.

Maskell, B. H., Baggaley, B., & Grasso, L. (2016). Practical lean accounting: a proven system for measuring and managing the lean enterprise. Productivity Press.

Schaltegger, S., & Burritt, R. (2017). Contemporary environmental accounting: issues, concepts and practice. Routledge.

Uml Usecase Diagram For Online Banking System

Enterprise resource planning is refereed to integrated management for core business processes. The characteristics offered by ERP include integrated system along with better operations at real time. In addition to this ERP also includes a common database that is used for the purpose of supporting all applications. ERP not only includes information technology and systems but also includes detailed description about organization structure, business processes and people associated with organization. Thus ERP becomes an important factor for every business process. Enterprise resource planning includes generating better finance and accounting database and also focuses on management accounting. In addition to this the human resources are also focused with the use of enterprise resource planning. This checks the details regarding people getting recruited, proper maintenance of payroll, retirement and pension plans and managing the diversity. Moreover ERP also includes proper manufacturing of the materials that are associated with the organization. ERP also manages the supply chain management and schedule the proper dispatch of product and configuration of production. The inventory is also maintained with the use of enterprise resource planning. Apart from all this it is important to have a better customer relationship management so that it can ensure better relationship within the organization. CRM helps in controlling the customer support and are considered as one of the major component for maintaining the business process.

Online banking system offers a better way of managing personal account of users. The major  benefits that are offered with online banking system is  that it offers a convenient way of transferring the money and offers a better access towards the record related to personal account. This offers banking easily without any efforts. This is also known as internet banking that ensures customer with the ability of performing financial transactions. The major benefit that is obtained with online transaction is that it ensures an efficient way of managing the money with less time. Online banking system offers user to pay their loan within time , ensures quick transfer of money from one account to other. The banking system can be used for personal use that includes paying for personal expenses. The user also has the ability to check current status of their account.

UML USE CASE DIAGRAM

The four actors in the UML use case diagram are Administrative, user, banking staff and loan executive. Once the user gets logged in within the online banking system they can perform several activities using their account. In case the user is not a registered customer than there is a need to register first within the banking system so that they can utilize the online system. User is allowed to withdraw cash from their account whenever needed. In addition to this the user is allowed to transfer their money and can make payment as per their need. The user has also offered with the feature of requesting for a loan. Loan gets approved by loan executive and administrative is responsible for notifying the user regarding each transaction. Banking staffs are responsible for generating the reports regarding each user account.

Bibliography

Carminati, M., Caron, R., Maggi, F., Epifani, I., & Zanero, S. (2015). BankSealer: A decision support system for online banking fraud analysis and investigation. computers & security, 53, 175-186.

Japparova, I., & Rupeika-Apoga, R. (2017). Banking business models of the digital future: the case of Latvia. European Research Studies, 20(3A), 846.

Serrano-Cinca, C., & Gutiérrez-Nieto, B. (2016). The use of profit scoring as an alternative to credit scoring systems in peer-to-peer (P2P) lending. Decision Support Systems, 89, 113-122

Susanto, A., Chang, Y., & Ha, Y. (2016). Determinants of continuance intention to use the smartphone banking services: an extension to the expectation-confirmation model. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 116(3), 508-525.

AS-IS UML Activity Diagram

AS-IS UML Activity Diagram:

Figure 1: UML Activity Diagram of Moody Chapel AME

(Source: Created by Author)

Bibliography:

Felderer, M., & Herrmann, A. (2015). Manual test case derivation from UML activity diagrams and state machines: A controlled experiment. Information and Software Technology, 61, 1-15.

Wichmann, A., Jäger, S., Jungebloud, T., Maschotta, R., & Zimmermann, A. (2016, April). Specification and execution of system optimization processes with UML activity diagrams. In 2016 Annual IEEE Systems Conference (SysCon) (pp. 1-7). IEEE.

Biblical Integration Essay

 Accuracy as the ethical issue that relates to ERP system

Everything that God does is accurate and precise, right from the beginning of Genesis when he begins his creation to the end, Revelation when he speaks about how he will destroy the world during end time. He is a God of order; this is evident from the way he created the universe, everything in its own day and time. Also, there are many uncountable instances that shows how accurate God was in the things he did.

 Who is God?

God it the creator (Genesis. 1:1-31), he created the entire universe and man, He is the omnipresent (Exodus. 16:4-5), he was with the Israelites in the desert for forty years and never abandoned them, God is omniscient, he sees everything, the Bible says he knows the deepest thoughts of our hearts, He is the provider (Exodus. 16:4), he provided Quails and water to the Israelites while in the desert. He is the protector (Daniel. 6:19-23), he protected Daniel in the Lion’s den, God is the sustainer of life (Genesis. 3:19) he decides how long man shall live.

2) What biblical principles apply to the context?

Creator

God created everything in His own time and pace, he created everything accurately from the beginning when he created heavens and the Earth, and on day two he made the firmament and separated the waters which were under and above the firmament, on the third day he created vegetation, on the fourth day God made heavenly bodies, on the fifth day he made sea animals and birds, he blessed them and commanded them to multiply and fill the waters of the sea, on the last day God created man in his own image and likenesses. And he made them wiser and greater than all his other creations.(Genesis. 1:1-31) All that God created was good in his eyes, from this we get to see how accurate and how well planned had planned his creation, everything in its own day and time (Johnson, 2014).

Provider

 God, from the beginning has been providing for man all his needs, in the garden of Eden, he planted fruits for man to eat and also provided animals for his food, in Genesis 22:13-14 God provides a ram for Abraham and his son Isaac for him to offer as a burnt offering to God in place of his son Isaac, David also praises God in Psalm 65:9-13,he praise him for enriching the Earth and filling the streams with water, his path drips with fatness and the fields are green and signs to his honor.

Protector

God has been portrayed as a protector on numerous instances; he is precise in the form of protection that he offers (John, 2014). To the Israelites, he protected them while they were still in Egypt and ones he had delivered them out of Egypt he protected them in the dessert from the hostile desert tribes. In 1 Corinthians 10:13, Paul states that God in his accuracy promises no temptation shall befall you except that which is common to mankind. He promises to provide a way out of every situation and help you endure it. In Daniel 6:19-23, God protected Daniel from the lions; he sealed their mouths and kept Daniel safe all through.

Sustainer of life

In Genesis 3:19, he says to Adam that we are dust and to dust we shall return. He gives us life and also takes it away, he created everything and gave them the breath of life, and he therefore has the power to sustain our lives. Job 38:33-37; “Do you know the ordinances of heaven or rules over the earth?” Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, So that an abundance of water will cover you? “Can you send forth lightning that they may go and say to you, ‘Here we are’?” Isn’t he the one who puts wisdom in the innermost being or given understanding to the mind? “Isn’t He the only one who can count the clouds by wisdom, or tip the water jars of the heavens?

Omniscient

He sees all, he is aware of what is happening what happened and what is to happen later.1 Kings 8:39, he pleads with God to hear the cries of men from heaven, his dwelling place. He, God, hears everything, he forgives and acts and renders judgment according to his ways. He alone knows the heart and thoughts of men.

3) What’s your response based on who God is?

Affirm what the secular world view says as true.

The secular world views God as a scam, to them he doesn’t exist, they don’t believe in the creation theory with support from the Babylonian creation theory known as “Unuma Elish”. This is the story of creation according to the Babylonians, according to it Marduk created the universe through defeating his sister Tiamat and created heaven and earth by diving her body into two halves then he ascended the throne Pantheon and became a god. This in some ways is similar to the creation story in Genesis 1.Scientist with their vast knowledge and research also don’t believe in creation theory (Bruch, 2010). They believe that according to thermodynamics law nothing can be created today. They also claim that God doesn’t exist, they believe in the existence of science and in the incarnation, hence claiming that there is no life after death. They argue that if God created everything then who created God? Which can be argued as true, who is God and how did he came into existence? Secular world believes that “God” is just an excuse for Christian’s not to have fun and enjoy life; they claim that he has a lot of rules and Commandments that he requires people to follow hence no fun in living. The Secular world also believes that God is a self-proclaimed king, nobody made him king but he claims to be the king, the ruler of heaven and Earth. They don’t believe in the holy Trinity, according to them it is impossible for one person to exist as three people unless he or she is possessed by the evil spirits.to them this is just a way to confuse people and recruit more people to follow Christ.

Reject what the Secular world says.

God is self-existing (Psalm. 53:1-3) David says that only a fool Denise God existence  and nobody can understand or explain how God works, the scriptures says that God works in mysterious ways and his ways are not like those of men. In Hebrew 11:6, it states that without sufficient faith, it is impossible to be good before God; this is because anybody who seeks him should and must believe in his existence. He is the most holy being that will ever exist in the face of earth. God is the sole creator of all things, from Genesis 1:1 it clearly states that God is the maker of everything. He is the king, the ruler of everything in heaven above and in earth; above all he is the sustainer of life as evident in Genesis. God is powerful, evident from Romans 1:19-20, it states that God’s power and Devine nature is invisible though understood through the things he has made. Genesis 1 cannot be compared to the Enuma Elish of the Babylonians, this is because Genesis is not just some old stories of creation, and it is the Israelites theology. Genesis also says that God created everything on his own, not through some old power struggle ploy like in the case of Enuma Elish (Bruch, 2010).

 Ancient stories like that of the Babylonians helps us understand how the ancient people thought about the creation and helps us calibrate the genre of genesis.it doesn’t give us an opportunity to question the bible. The Bible also isn’t away for Christian’s not to have fun, the Bible itself encourages fun, the Israelites had numerous celebrations, but it should be done with precaution and anything you do should be in accordance with the Lord ways. Judges 14:10 “Then his father went down to the woman; and Samson made a feast there, for the young men customarily did this”. The Bible also says you should drink wine, it even says that it is good for the body, but you should not let it control you. The Bible has commandments that Christian’s follow and they follow them because that is what is required of them by God. God exist as three persons in the Trinity and this cannot be explained to anyone without enough faith.

4) Who is God?

I have realized that God is love and he loves us (John. 4:10) God loved the world so much that he gave us, sinners, his only begotten son to come to Earth and die for our sins, so that those who believe in him should not perish but have an everlasting life in him. John 3:16.

God is life, the Bible states that he is the bread of life and the water of life and whoever comes to him will never lack or perish but have everlasting life in God.

God is kind; his kindness is evident in Psalms 63:3, because your loving kindness is better than life, my lips will praise you.

God is merciful, Ephesians 2:4, but our father God, being abundant in mercy, Because of God’s great overwhelmingly love that he offers to us.

God is patient; he is slow to anger according to Nehemiah 9:16-17 Nehemiah confess that their fathers had acted arrogantly. They had become increasingly stubborn and wouldn’t listen to God’s commandments. They forget the wondrous things and miracles God had done for them in the past.they even appointed a leader who would return them back to Egypt to be slaves, but our God is a God of forgiveness, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abundant in love. He is unbelievable kind and not even for a moment did he forsake them.

God is a God of miracles; all that he has done cannot be explained by anybody. All things that are unattainable to men are attainable through God in Matthew 19:26, Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

References

Johnson, J. C. (2014). Bible Study Questions: 2 Timothy 2:15. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse.
Bruch, M. D. (2010). Biblical References in Thomas King’s “Green Grass, Running Water”. Munich, Germany: GRIN Verlag.

The New Oxford Annotated Bible. (2007). M. D. Coogan (Ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press

New International Version. Bible Gateway, www.biblegateway.com. Accessed 29 Jan, 2019.