Replacing Access With Excel

[Pluong91]

I am trying to figure out a way to replace Access at my company. We currently use Access to log inventory that is being returned.

This is the current view of Access form that we enter data in.
It captures route number, receipt date, tax if applicable, but the tricky part is the actual inventory portion. There can be multiple products being returned and we log whether it is an individual or a case with the associated cost attached. I would also need a way to export this data in a useable format for me to forumlate reports with.

I've tried using Excel Forms and everything else would work except for logging the multiple inventory items within the form.
I'm looking into using a VBA along with forms to create something from scratch but I'm not very knowledgeable about writing my own script, I usually put scripts together that I find online in order to get the job done.

Is there any other way you all can think of to achieve this? Are there any other database software's potentially that I should look into? My initial inclination is to use excel because of familiarity.

 

[etaf]

Access can handle large databases and also can be structured to minimise the data held, relational database , containing the data only once , and joining multiple tables and so the speed is improved considerable

In the late 90's i had an excel file , that took hours to run / update and transfered to access and it worked in seconds

any reason you want to move from access to excel - seems a bit of a backward step, as you have 365 version access is included anyway - in the windows version NOT on OSX Apple software

 

[Pluong91]

Access can handle large databases and also can be structured to minimise the data held, relational database , containing the data only once and so speed

any reason you want to move from access to excel - seems a bit of a backward step, as you have 365 version access is included anyway - in the windows version NOT on OSX Apple software

Replacing access is largely due to business organizational structure.
We don't have the individuals that are familiar with access any longer but we do have many individuals that are highly skilled within Excel.
I want to migrate to Excel so that we can have support and raw data manipulation in order to formulate reports that fits the needs of different departments.

 

[awoohaw]

I agree with what @etaf wrote.
But if you do insist on going down the excel route, i'd suggest building it in Excel's Power Query. Mr. Excel has a power query forum that you can go to for help there.
(Note, I am not a PQ user or expert, but it seems to me that it operates much more like a database in setting up relationships)

 

[Joe4]

Welcome to the Board!

I concur with etaf entirely. Access is a database program that is designed to do relational database work. Excel is not.
While you can do it in Excel, it is often very clunky and slow, especially as your data grows.
Access is the right tool for the job, Excel, not so much. And you already have the application built in Access!
There is an old saying we have around here, "you could try to use a wrench to drive in nails, but why would you do that if you have a hammer?" (i.e. use the best tool for the job).

Note if you really have "highly skilled" Excel users, then I would think that they should be able to figure out how to do this in Excel.
If they can't, then one might argue that they may not be as highly skilled as they think they are.

I would also say that any person very knowledegable in Excel or any programming language should be able to learn Access without too much trouble.
It would probably take less time to do that than it would to recreate everything in Excel.

That's just my 2 cents, FWIW!