The thesis was commissioned by the student café at the School of Business and Information Management of the Oulu University of Applied Sciences (OUAS). The goal of the thesis was to develop an information system for a small business which manages customer accounts and transactions. The final product consists of the theoretical portion along with a proof-of-concept system based on the café’s needs and requirements. The system was developed using HTML, CSS, PHP, SQL and JavaScript.

The thesis topic came from the cafe wishing to replace their system of pre-paid coffee cards with a computerised system that would link customer accounts to student cards distributed by the café. Co-operation with the café ended during the thesis due delays arising from personal reasons and the change of staff, leadership, and focus that occurred within the organisation. Despite this, it was felt that the thesis had enough merit to continue using the café as an example rather than an actual client. Losing the client meant that restrictions would apply to the availability of hardware necessary for full system implementation. This has been reflected in the thesis by altering the system design accordingly.

The thesis examines the challenges present in software development for small companies. A number of software development life cycle models were evaluated, leading to the Waterfall model being selected. The development of the system was carried out according to the method suggested by the Waterfall model. A proof-of-concept system was created in order to prove the feasibility of the idea.

The system created matches the requirements outlined at the start of development. The original requirements of the café were adjusted after the loss of the client. The thesis gave the opportunity to improve as a developer and gain experience with tools both familiar and new. For future considerations it would be interesting to run a similar project with more client involvement and a different development model.