Features of GRASP
GRASP (GRam panchayat Accounting System by Prithvitech) was created to meet the need of accountants for a software, which could generate accounts reports for villages in a predefined format as specified by CAG.
According to the requirements set for creating Gram Panchyat (village) accounts, expenses/income under various heads are to be slotted into ready-made categories (adding a new expense/income head is permitted). The account reports are presented in 16 preset formats, including annual expense under each category, monthly expense by category, cash book, etc.
Special emphasis has been paid to the usability of this application.
To ease data entry, the accounting software maintains a hierarchial list of all ready-made categories (in Hindi) under which income/expenses can be entered. Easy placement of lists of these categories in a hierarchy assists quick selection of category, without any typing. Bank accounts (as well as cash and investments) are again placed in a convenient list. Using this list, the data entry operator can select an account to make a transaction from.
Accounts roll over across years
Accounts from the previous year 'roll over' into the next year. This saves time over systems which keep each year distinct, and force operators to enter account information for each year. The step, although simple in concept, is slightly tricky to implement, since it involves creating a very clear seperation between the transactions of each year for all the various reports that are to be generated. The use of Object Oriented technologies, specially encapsulation helps in achieving this tricky objective easily.
Cashbook available
To tally data entered, a cash book is generated on the fly, and is always available in a software 'tab'. The beginning and end of year accounts are always visible in this tab.
Report generation system
Using the cash book created from these entries, a series of reports according to the prescribed format are created and put out to a pdf file.
The report generation is done via a completely separate online interface. With this seperation, we were able to create a service model for this application, where the data entry module could be given free of cost, open for replication on any number of terminals for fast data entry, and report generation could be charged for separately.
