Designing A Check Printing System

[Guest]

I'm facing the task of trying to design a check printing system where input
by the user will involve the payee (name & address), amount to be paid, and
any references (with an adding function), generate those on a print out form
to be printed on blank pre-made checks.

It is not going to be something that will be used by a lot of people, so I
was given the suggestion of doing it in Access.

Idealy, this database should allow the user to open up a form, select from a
list of pre-entered customer names (I've made a form that allow the user to
manually add/edit the customer table), once it is chosen, the next form
should have the customer information filled in according to the selection, a
worksheet at the bottom will allow user to enter an invoice number, the total
invoice amount, and sum up the amounts. A report is generated and printed on
the blank check sheets. The user should also be able to go back and track how
much is paid by a particular check number and what are the individual items
listed on that check.

My knowledge in Access programming is on a beginner level, I have a basic
working knowledge of Access. I have created 3 tables.

Customer (name, address, city, state, zip)
Check (Check Number will be primary key, total amount)
Invoice (each individual entry that will have a dollar amount to be summed
up to equal the total amount).

I first thought about just doing this in Excel, but doing so means that the
user will have to do his/her own bookkeeping on what was entered each time,
and re-enter information every time another check is to be generated.

Is this something that can be done with Access? Where could I find some
resources that might be related to this? Is there a template that is somewhat
close to what this is?

Thank you very much.

 

[Van T. Dinh]

* Check the sample database NorthWind that come with your Access software.
While this concentrate on customer orders, it should give you the basic
concepts of database design.

* The book "Access 2000 Programming Weekend Crash course" by Cary Prague et
al, published by IDG Books actually uses a Cheque Printing database as the
primary example for development in the book. I am not sure there are other
versions of the book for later Access versions but the development should
remain essentially the same.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the generous advice.

I've taken a look at the book as well as the example you've kindly
mentioned, the example system is much, much more extensive than what I am
trying to accomplish, to the point where it seemed somewhat daunting.

I would like to see how far I could get on this on my own, and now I ran
into my first road block. As I've said, I have currently created three
tables. I have a form called customer select where it features a combo box
that pulls in the list of customer names in the customer table using a select
query on the Customers table. The idea is to select(highlight) the name of
the customer, a command button is next to the list.

My idea is once the command button is clicked, it closes this form, brings
up the main check worksheet form that will populate the following:

Customer Name
Street
Address
State
Zip

based on the selected name above. I can get the combo box to pull in the
list of customer names with no problem. My question is how to generate the
syntax that will take the selection, perform the conditional query, and
populate the fields in the main form.

I've tried for a couple of hours and still have no success.

Any thoughts?

Thank you

 

[Van T. Dinh]

If your Form is based on the Table Customers (or a Query which is mainly
based on the Table Customers), then use the ComboBox Wizard to create the
required ComboBox + code for you. In the first Dialog of the ComboBox
Wizard, select the 3rd option "Find a record on my form based on the value I
selected in my combo box".