should I do this in Excel or Access

[esilverb]

I don’t know if this project would work best in Excel or Access so I’m
looking for advice. I need to track purchase orders and the invoices that are
charged against them. There is an initial allocation made to each purchase
order, more money may be allocated and money could be de-obligated. Here’s
what I need:
• A table, form or sheet for each purchase order that would track
o The initial allocation
o Additional allocations
o De-obligations of funds
o Invoices charged against that purchase order
o Subtotal of the allocations and de-allocations
o Subtotal of the purchase orders
o The subtotals of the purchase orders subtracted from the subtotal of the
allocations
o The percentage remaining of the allocated funds
o The date of the allocation
o The end date of the allocation period
• Another table, form, sheet or report showing acting a summary sheet showing
o Each purchase order
o The amount remaining
o The date of the last transaction
• A report of all the purchase orders that are down to 25% of their allocation
• A report of all the purchase orders that are going to expire in 30 days or
less
• Automatically send an e-mail when the numbers reach the 25% or the 30 days
prior to expiration
Again, the question is, do I do all of this is Excel or Access and then how?
Thanks so much for all of your help and suggestions!
Ellen

 

[Tom van Stiphout]

On Sat, 14 Jun 2008 08:13:00 -0700, esilverb

You're describing features most good accounting software already have
built-in, tested, and ready to go. That's where I would start.
-Tom.

 

[esilverb]

Thanks for your comments. Unfortunately I'm working for an organization where
other software is not an option. I need to work this out in Access or Excel.
Ellen

 

[Clif McIrvin]

Thanks for your comments. Unfortunately I'm working for an
organization where
other software is not an option. I need to work this out in Access or
Excel.
Ellen

Fun, fun, fun.

What application development background do you have?

I'm no master of Access, but to me Access is far and away preferable to
Excel (relational database model provides flexibility in handling
variable data -- ie, variable number if invoices -- , the forms design
tools in Access are far superior to Excel (at least in Office 2003),
the ability to create queries for extracting data in a variety of
configurations, the report design tools ....) for this scenario if you
absolutely must 'roll your own.'


(In the long run they'll spend significantly less $$ researching and
obtaining an off-the-shelf package.)

 

[Tom van Stiphout]

On Sat, 14 Jun 2008 12:16:00 -0700, esilverb

You're taking on a very significant project. No offense, but it's
beyond what can be expected of a beginner.
Someone who is equally competent developer in Excel and Access would
always do this project in Access.
If you decide to move forward, be sure you're going under the wings of
a more senior developer.
But also (one more time) do the math: you're making x dollars/hour,
and this project will take y hours to complete. Is it really not more
efficient to buy the software?

-Tom.