advice on database

[gregork]

I have painstakingly created an excel 2000 workbook for the very complex
recipes I have to formulate. I have 2 sheets- 1 for configuring the recipe
and 1 that is like an inventory of all the raw materials and their
specifications. I have many lookup formulas on sheet1 that lookup the specs
on the inventory.
The problem is sheet 1 works really well but sheet 2 is not really
performing as an inventory database like I want it to.
The biggest problem I have had is keeping track of stock levels. I thought
that I would be able to have the inventory levels automatically updated when
I used them in the recipes on sheet 1. But it has turned out to be an
incredibly difficult exercise in VBA programming to achieve this on excel !
What should I do? I really need to have my inventory running live so
whenever I use it in recipes my stock is updated in inventory.
Can access do what I want?
If yes then do I need to start from scratch again or can I keep my recipes
on excel and inventory on access?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I know bugger all about access.

cheers
greg

 

[Ken Snell]

ACCESS can do what you want, but it will be a bit of a steep slope for
learning. Here is a link to a recipe database template at Microsoft's web
site (watch for line wrapping..the URL is all one line):

http://office.microsoft.com/templat...01033&QueryID=urg4XyNNx&Query=recipe&Scope=TC

I don't believe that this database is set up to handle inventory though, but
it will give you an idea of how ACCESS can maintain such info.

Handling automatic updates of inventory can be complex, depending upon your
business rules. Once set up, ACCESS can do this very easily, much more
easily than what you're doing in EXCEL. But, you should not expect to be
able to make ACCESS ready to go in a few hours' work.