Back Office Processes:
Page 140
Explain what Back Office Processes are and why your organisation needs them

e.g. stock control, management of stock, website management

is needed to keep order and control.

Is all about business being efficient?

Back office processes are necessary because without them there wouldn’t be any system and the company would lose customers. They help the business to run efficiently. All of the processes are there to help the customer and make sure their goods are there on time and to help the company keep track of their customers.



What processes are involved in Stock Control? What is at the centre of this type of system?

Make sure that there is always enough stock
Make sure items are available
Make sure don’t sell the same item twice
Real-time process
Uses a database because can have all items listed, the supplier, price, when sold, etc. etc. etc. any information related to each product

ASP – active server pages

Basically logs onto the database over the internet so every time go to the website, type in a search, actually searching a database via the internet. Looks like a website because it’s made to look nice and user friendly, but is actually a database.




Explain what ASPs, and how it can update a database.


See page 141.


How do organisations maintain the virtual shopping basket for a customer, what processes are involved?

They are able to maintain the virtual shopping basket by:

Log in, items added, prices totalled, stock is reserved so not sold twice, items can be removed, delivery costs.




Draw an example flowchart for your organisation to illustrate these processes.

See sheet.


P143, Explain briefly the difference between, HTTP authentication, and cookie identification.

Http authentication = normal log in, username + password, - checks who you are

Cookie identification = when you were last on, what bought, etc, stored on hard-drive, allows the website to ‘sort-of’ know you and how you want things.

E.g. colour scheme of a website.

Remember my username?

YES = making a cookie!!!!

can block cookies, but could mean not allowing some sites to work.

What advantage do cookies have over HTTP authentication?

Automatic way of tracking who is on the site, where logging in etc, without them logging in