IPB Students Creates an Application to Increase Village’s Cooperative
Since its formation, there has not been any cooperative that grows into a great business like a big economic player. One of the internal problems in a cooperative is the inadequate administration management and the manual data administration that is likely to trigger distrust towards the money management among cooperatives members.
The administration system of cooperative in the villages still uses a conventional method where money is calculated manually. This leads to more amount of time spent to calculate and validate the money issue of each member, namely the net income (Sisa Hasil Usaha/SHU). The distribution of SHU is the most important operation in a cooperative. SHU is the net income that is gotten by the cooperative that is distributed to the member according to their number of service and saving. The problem in a simple money recapitulation creates many problems, so five students of Bogor Agricultural University (IPB) offer cooperative to use an IT and digital based online website app. This developing app, named SOKO GURU, is hoped to become cooperative's money management system.
Bayu, the team leader, stated that their proposal, which named "SOKO GURU: Improvement of Sisa Hasil Usaha System for Increasing The Effectiveness of Cooperative of Unit Desa Sumber Alam, Dramaga, Bogor." We created an app based on online technology to ease the cooperative staff to calculate and manage the finance of the cooperative," Bayu said.
This Student Creativity Program in Technology (PKM-T) SOKO GURU is supervised by Drs. Moh. Nur Indro, and has Bayu Pranoto Dwi Putra, Endang Nuradi, Gito Heryan, Murtezha Hadijaya El Hasyibi, and Afdhal Yusra as its members. SOKO GURU is able to give renewal to the finance management system. The innovation of SOKO GURU caters to every member. Each member will have an integrated account directly to the admin (cooperative staff), so the recap of cooperative's financial matters can be seen by every member when they log in to the application.
"In general, when someone wants to enroll and save his/her money or when there is a member that wants to opt out, and when someone wants to return his/her money, recapitulation is done manually. This made cooperative staff must look into the recap since the beginning, which takes a lot of time and inefficient, so we give this solution," said Murtheza when explaining SOKO GURU.
SOKO GURU has a big potential to implemented in the cooperatives in Indonesia. As the form of early implementation, SOKO GURU was implemented in Unit Desa Sumber Alam Cooperative, Dramaga, Bogor. Firstly, the team give socialization to cooperative staff about the importance of integrated finance management and the implementation of SOKO GURU.
SOKO GURU was welcomed by the staff of Unit Desa Sumber Alam Cooperative staff as it would give ease to staff and increase the service quality of cooperative to the members. The data of income and spending, and finance management would be integrated in the SOKO GURU website. The SOKO GURU app has comprehensive features, e.g. cooperative profile, news, and many things about cooperative's development.
As SOKO GURU was seen as potential to be implemented in cooperatives in villages, Bayu and his team had prepared a guide book to use SOKO GURU app. This book would give a comprehensive explanation so it can facilitate the implementation of SOKO GURU for cooperatives in Indonesia. Entering the global challenge and competitiveness among businesses, SOKO GURU can be the first step to help cooperatives in Indonesia to be digitalised and technology-based. (CN)
