A program for computer clubs that limits playing time. Step-by-step business plan for a computer club

Locker- This complex system automation of computer clubs and internet cafes. The main tasks of the system are to register computer sessions in the hall and block the operation of computers whose session time has expired. In addition, the Locker program keeps track of any additional services, user payments, the balance of each user, records of computer bookings, collects statistics and generates various reports on work and much more...

The Locker program has a developed system for separating employee access to various functions and reports. With the help additional modules it is possible to display the state of the hall computers on separate screen users at the entrance to the computer room, displaying the current state of computers on the club’s website on the Internet, sending messages about the current state to the head of the club, automatic printing receipts on the cash register.

New option client program for club computers Club Client program. This program also works with Locker!

Bonus work system: the user's account accumulates " bonus time"For example, for every five hours of work, the user receives one hour of free bonus time. The use of this system is a good incentive for regular users.

Description of the Locker program

The program is distributed as shareware, and is supplied on an “as is” basis, that is, the developer is not responsible for possible consequences its misuse. We guarantee only compliance of the program's functions with its documentation and attention on our part to the wishes of the program's users.

The program runs on Windows 10 / 8 / 7 / Vista / XP / 2003 / 2000 / NT / 98 / ME. Minimum Requirements: a computer capable of running some kind of Windows, 15 MB of hard disk space + data size. The display screen resolution must be no worse than 1024x768.

The relevance of computer clubs today would be questioned by many. In fact, it is now difficult to find a person who does not have a single computer at home, and, perhaps, the Internet too.

If you can always use all this at home, sitting on a soft sofa, who will need to go to the club, and even pay extra money for it? But, surprisingly, this business to this day is one of the most cost-effective, and the flow of customers shows no signs of slowing down.

What is this connected with, for what reasons can people nowadays give preference to computer clubs:

In children and adolescents who are largest percentage Club visitors have a developed need to be in company.
They are attracted by the opportunity to come to the club with friends, share their impressions during the game and spend time together. In addition, the club allows you to play doubles games or even games with many participants, which is not always possible at home.

Many parents do not approve of their children's excessive involvement with computers, limiting access, and also do not allow them to be noisy in the apartment.
In the computer club you can make a lot of noise and play for fun.

All people experience various force majeure events in their lives.
It happens that you urgently need to do this or that work, find information, contact someone - but the Internet, as luck would have it, is turned off. Such cases are by no means uncommon, so visitors who just need to use a computer will appear at your place regularly.

In other words, it is extremely wrong to think that modern computer clubs are empty. Earn from a similar business good income It’s quite possible, but when organizing the work of the club you will have to face a number of difficulties.

How to organize a computer club

Open computer club makes sense, if there are no analogues to such an establishment in your city or region, or they do not satisfy all customer requests.

At the same time locality must have at least 20 thousand inhabitants, otherwise the project is most likely doomed to failure. Basically, the work of such a club is designed for teenagers, to a slightly lesser extent - for students, while other age categories are an exception.

For young people, the most convenient time to visit the club will be evening or night; in the morning the establishment will be empty. Therefore, it is better to draw up a work schedule based on this: computer club must work around the clock or until late, perhaps from the afternoon.

The central location for a computer club does not play a big role; you can open it in a residential area. However, it is important that the club is located within walking distance from the school, or better yet, from several. It is advisable to locate the club directly next to a bus stop or large store. It is not recommended to use a room located on the ground floor of a multi-storey building - residents will constantly complain about noise.

But, no matter the location, noise insulation characteristics of the room should be maximum.

Development potential. What issues need to be considered?

How to cover the most in a business plan for a vending business important aspects, read about the features of this direction.

Read more about preparing to open an LLC here:. What documents are needed to start the registration procedure?

Technical requirements

The activities of a computer club do not require a license, but this is where the “simplicity” of the organization ends.

Otherwise, you will have to fill out a lot of documents and go through a number of scrupulous checks. Still, such work will have a direct bearing on children, and in our country we are always strict about this.

To gain full access to work and functioning, the computer club needs the following:

Purchase a license to use from the Ministry of Communications local Internet and provision of thematic services.
If you opt for a 24-hour club, you will need permission from your local police department.
According to the standards of the sanitary service, at least 4 square meters must be allocated for one playing place.

For the club to generate income, there must be computers in the hall at least 15.

Based on this, you need to calculate the area of the room - as you can see, it turns out not so small

Next important point associated with the power of electromagnetic radiation.
This indicator should also remain within the normal range, so SES employees will take the necessary measurements at each computer. By the way, the service is paid..
In addition, you will also need to comply with fire safety standards.
The wiring in the room must withstand enormous stress, so it must be changed during renovation. The club must have a fire exit and fire extinguishers: with such activity in the electrical network, this measure is inevitable.
By law, children cannot be in the computer club during school hours, or after 9 pm.
Breaking these rules is fraught with large fines, so you need to closely monitor the schedule.

Computer equipment

Remember that the equipment you will use in the club should be as powerful and productive as possible. Not every computer can handle it modern videos games.

It's better to buy computers directly from the manufacturer, this way you can save a lot on intermediaries.

However, games alone are not enough: the presence and high speed internet, which will require considerable investment. Corporate network- not at all what the Internet is for home use, these are completely different speed and price indicators. Subscription fee for about equipment of the hall itself minimum speed will cost several thousand - and you will need much more high speed connection, you need the Internet to “fly”.

Next a significant expense item – software for your computers.

The catch is that it certainly must be licensed.

Of course, you can take a risk and use “illegal” software, but most likely, sooner or later the check will still reveal your cunning. In this case, the consequences are dire: up to a 60 thousand ruble fine, or two years in prison - what to do, copyright infringement.

If the company itself, whose security you used, goes to court, the fine you face will increase to five million rubles. In a word, in order not to make things worse, it is better not to joke with the law and organize everything at the official level.

In addition to the main equipment, you should definitely stock up on small equipment: a photocopier, clean disks, flash drives. This will allow you render additional services and receive more money(the photocopier alone is worth it - be prepared that you will be contacted with this request all the time).

What computer club equipment can be like, look at the video:

Where to start compiling. What budget will be required to open?

We’ll talk about the advantages of starting a small franchise business in a separate section. How to minimize your own investment cash at the initial stage.

An example of an anti-cafe business plan is available at:. How to develop this direction and what will be needed for this?

Staff

For computer club Numerous personnel are not only not required, but also undesirable:

Firstly, this is a fairly “independent” entertainment - video game fans know perfectly well how and what to do, they do not require tips, advertising or close attention from employees.
In fact, the employee’s duties are limited to registering guests and keeping track of time, and therefore one administrator is enough for such work.
Another reason is that when we're talking about O expensive equipment, the choice of personnel should be doubly careful.
It's hard to vouch for stranger- suddenly the employee turns out to be dishonest and decides to quietly unscrew some parts for his home processor? Or he won’t keep track of clients who decide to do the same.

It's better if the administrator will be confidant , for whom you can always vouch.

Sample business plan for opening a computer club

As in any business, a lot of initial investments will be required, but in the future they will be significantly reduced.

The initial costs for opening a club are as follows:

Rent of premises – from 50 thousand rubles;
Connection to the network (speed 100 Mb/s) – up to 3 thousand rubles;
Internet subscription fee for legal entities is 10-15 thousand rubles.
Repair, change of wiring – 50 thousand rubles;
Equipment and software – from 800 thousand rubles;
Furniture – 300 thousand rubles;
Utility payments – from 15 thousand rubles;
Advertising, signs – 20 thousand rubles;
Consumables, minor needs – 30 thousand rubles.

Generally, starting capital– approximately 1.5 million rubles.

The amount is considerable, which is not surprising when it comes to expensive equipment - but a fairly quick (about a year) payback and good income fully compensates for the costs.

The spread of computer clubs and Internet cafes around the world is experiencing a real boom in popularity. Opportunity to get easy access access to the Internet in any corner of the world is very important and useful for everyone. E-mail, access to Internet resources - all this makes our lives more convenient and productive. This is a real storehouse of information for students, a means of communication and leisure time. Lovers computer games have the opportunity to fight against each other, not only within the computer club room, but also with any opponent anywhere globe. The help of computer clubs is invaluable for people on vacation or on a business trip. For them it is a means of communication, an opportunity to exchange documents, important messages. It is impossible to list all areas useful services provided computer clubs.

The owners of computer clubs, from the very first days of work, are faced with a lot of various problems. How to control the work of administrators? Dishonest employees (administrators) often do not bring money to the cash register, selling computer time without accounting. The owner of the club cannot be constantly present and monitor the work. He needs reliable daily work reports (which would be impossible to falsify), club performance statistics, and the ability to control work from home, via the Internet. Its main task is to increase the profit received from the club’s work. The work of computer club administrators is not only about recording paid time and accepting money from clients. It is necessary to monitor the state of computers, the operation of the local network, and limit club visitors from starting malware. All this is far from full list problems that are solved with the help of automation and management programs for computer clubs.

Today there are many programs for managing computer clubs. There are both domestic and foreign developments, professional and amateur, expensive and free. In this article we will look at the development of the domestic (Ukraine/Odessa) company AstrumSoft - “Computer Hall”. (). The administration program has been developed since 2000, author Ruslan Andreevich Shcherbatyuk (). The program is popular not only in the former Soviet republics, but also abroad. The program has Russian, Ukrainian, English, German, Lithuanian and Latvian interfaces. The program works under most operating systems Windows (XP / 2003 / Vista / 7 / 8 / 8.1 / 10).

The original interface of the program allows you to assess the situation in the club at a glance. One screen contains information about all computers in the club. This solution places some limitation on the admin monitor. For a club with 16 computers, a screen resolution of 800x600 is sufficient; for a club with up to 30 computers, a resolution of 1024x768 is required; if you have from 31 to 48 computers, a monitor with a resolution of 1280x1024 is required. Today this is not a problem.

The program consists of two parts, server and client. Server part installed on the administrator's computer. This is his workplace. The client part is installed on each computer on the local network. Clients of the computer club (or Internet cafe) will work behind them.

The task of the client parts of the program is to keep computers in a locked state until the rental of their time is paid. Computers are blocked using several mechanisms: an unclosable screensaver window and a keyboard/mouse lock. This is what a sample splash window looks like:

It is possible to insert any picture or group of pictures, changing randomly or at a specified interval.

Control of paid time is the number one functionality that is found in any computer club management program. The club administrator just needs to enter the time for which the computer is used, the payment amount will be automatically calculated, and the client computer will be unlocked. When the paid time expires, the client computer will be automatically locked. Thus, the client will not “overplay” more time than he paid for, and the club owner will be sure that he will receive the maximum profit. The program can remind the client how much time he has left (or how much he has used), including by voice, 5 minutes before the end of time, directly into the headphones or through the speakers of the administrator's computer.

In the program you can enter the price per hour of games, hour of Internet. There are concepts of "night", "midnight". Often users stay to work in an Internet cafe all night. This usually costs less than paying by the hour. You can use "open time", i.e. when the client does not know in advance how long he will work and wants to pay at the end of the work. The sale of minutes in bulk has been implemented, with crediting to the balance of regular customers (gaming and Internet cards).

Discounts, rounding of payments, free time for setting up a computer are taken into account; tariffs can change automatically depending on the time of day. It is possible to fine a client for bad behavior (reduce his work time). It is possible to return the remaining money to the client (if he paid for 1 hour, but worked only 30 minutes). It is possible to transfer clients to other computers; it is possible for the client to give the remaining time to a friend on another computer.

The program allows you to keep track of the time you use any game consoles eg: Xbox 360, Xbox One, Playstation 3 / 4, Wii. To block work, the program uses network devices control IP PDU sockets (purchased separately). When the paid time expires, the program turns off the power to the TV.

Reliable reporting is an extremely important functionality of any computer club monitoring program. In the "Computer Room" program, various reports are maintained that can be viewed for any period (for example, a selected work shift on a given day). The reports are encrypted and there is no easy way to change or replace them. Reports even have self-healing mechanisms from internal copies. The owner of the club can be confident in the reliability of the reports, all possible loopholes for deception by its administrators have been eliminated, he will see the statistics of the club’s work as it really was. This is what one of the program reports looks like:

Reports for the program, and the program itself, have different levels access protected by passwords. The owner, for example, can prohibit editing the tariffs used in the program and prohibit viewing shift reports of other administrators. A special report “processes used” shows which programs clients used and at what time. It is possible to display a list of processes sorted by “popularity”. For any computer (or for all), for the current shift or for any given period. The owner of the club will be aware of how much more popular one game is than another in his club.

The program allows you to take into account any other services, for example: printing, scanning, burning CDs, bar services (tea, coffee). Printing on the printer is specially controlled by the program; all printers connected to the administrator’s computer are under its constant supervision. Every printed sheet of paper is counted.

The program allows you to control your Internet usage various modes work. It is possible to disable it in game mode, or configure limited functionality. If you are a programmer and want to write your own Internet usage control module, the program instructions will tell you how to do this.

The program allows you to control and charge the traffic used by clients. Easily configure traffic division into local network, Internet and any other networks (for example, city). The price of 1 megabyte of traffic is set, depending on the volume.

The program has a built-in database of regular club visitors. You can enter personal data for each client, including address and photograph. The program will always tell you who spent time in the club and how much money they spent in total (brought profit to the club). It is possible to create user groups and assign discounts to groups, for example: regular group, discount - 3%; silver group, discount - 5%; gold group discount - 10%. At the end of the month, you can give away prizes for visitors who visited the club the most.

The program's capabilities are rich in remote control client computers. This tool is convenient primarily for administrators. You can view client desktops, process lists, delete processes, control sound volume, reboot and shut down computers, send text message and much more.

One of the drawbacks that many computer club management programs suffer from is the complex procedure for replacing client parts when the new version programs. This takes quite a long time to do, even for a club with a dozen computers. The Computer Room program can update versions of client parts with the click of just one button. By clicking another button, you can easily check the versions of the client parts on all computers and their integrity (i.e., protection against changes).

The club owner can control the operation of the program via the Internet. To do this, he just needs to run Internet Explorer, dial the club address, enter the password. It is possible to remotely view program reports, snapshots of desktops of client computers, the presence of connections with them, used in at the moment tariffs and much more.

The instructions for the program (which, by the way, take up more than 200 pages) contain a lot of recommendations for the owner of a computer club on how to catch the deceptions of dishonest administrators. Changing the clock, deleting the client part, trying to change the report - all this and much more will become known to the owner of the club.

Users who want to try the demo version of the program can download it here: . Its only difference from the full version is that it supports up to 4 client computers. Otherwise it is exactly the same as full version. Small computer clubs, with up to 4 computers, can use the program completely free of charge for as long as they want.