Excel or Access?

[albertc30]

Hi everybody.

It has been a while since my last post, off course, asking you all for help.

I have changed jobs and with it the need to use excel, which I did on a daily basis, has diminished considerably.

I am now full time self employed as a fire alarm engineer and spend most time out of the office.

I have been using quickbooks for quite sometime, as my accounts solution, but as it is due to be upgraded, for a cost that I can not yet afford, I find myself once again, back to the drawing board.

I have tried kashflow and a few on-line options, as I do find that perhaps a cloud based solution is better in the sense that should my PC pack up, my data is on-line and thus protected, or at least it should be.

Anyway, the real question now is, as I have done quite a few things on excel, and I must say I miss the joggling and crunching of code as it has always intrigued me, not forgetting to mention the priceless, honest, unbiased advise and help from all of you out there, should I pursue a small application that will manage my simple invoicing system.

Should I base this small application, spreadsheet more like it, on excel or access?

I don't do much, only 2 or 3 invoices a month.

I am thinking about using forms for almost all, such customer data, apart from using a form to enter invoice data. Always struggled with this last one, and in the past, the way I was doing this was to have the invoice layout as a document itself and print it from there.

My knowledge is limited on how to use a form that will show client data like address etc, and then lines for services and/or stock. I am sure there is a way, but just don't know how.

Anyway, I hope that you all, good people, can once again help on this small project.

I can and will, without a doubt, share this project with you all.

Many thanks.

Regards,
Albert

 

[Joe4]

Albert,

All things being equal, I would definitely go with Access (as matter as fact, we use Access for invoicing for one department at work). Access is designed to be - a "Database" program. Excel is a spreadsheet program that can be manipulated to work like a database, but it isn't really what it was designed for, so it is usually a bit clunky when used in that manner.

In Access, you can use Tables to store data, Forms to enter data, Queries to query the data, and Reports to produce your invoices (all Queries, Forms, and Reports ultimately tie back to the underlying Tables in Access).

Unlike Excel Forms, when you use Access, you do not need to create VBA code to explicitly write the data you are entering into Forms to the underlying data source (Worksheet in Excel, Table in Access). You can make your Form and Report fields bound to Table/Query fields. You simply select your data source (Table or Query), and then simply drag and drop the fields you want on the Forms and Reports, which you can pretty up. It works quite well.

Now, for the disclaimer. Notice I said "All things being equal". I know for most people, that is not the case. While Excel is somewhat intuitive and you can struggle your way through it, Access is a bit more complex. It is important to understand some basic Relational Database Theory, especially the first few Rules of Normalization. This is so you can design your tables correctly. That is key. If you do not do that, you may end up making things a lot harder and more frustrating for yourself (been there, done that). So there is probably some "up front" education to do before jumping into Access, if your goal is to create a database.

A good introductory course, books, or on-line tutorials are good places to start. You may even be able to find a few sample Invoicing templates on-line that you can download and check out.
Here is a good write-up on database design: https://support.office.com/en-nz/article/Database-design-basics-eb2159cf-1e30-401a-8084-bd4f9c9ca1f5
Here is another link of Data Normalization (usually, if you get to the Third Normal form in your design, you are in good shape): https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/100139

So, in a nutshell, Access is a little more investment up-front, but the benefits down the road should pay off.

Hope this helped. Good luck!

 

[XopieX20]

Agree with Joe4.... On his note, once you set it up in Access if you really wanted to play you could always write some VBA to grab the data from Access, throw it in excel and play with it