streamlining

  • Thread starter Thread starter mttmwsn
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mttmwsn

I'm fairly new to MS products and I need some NG help.

I'm doing a big construction project and I have serveral companies sending
me billing data in excell format. I want to create a summary of my spending
to see if it matches up with my budget.

What I want to do is to centralize the accounting data in access. My
problems is that each company has a different way of formating their data in
excell.

I thought that maybe I can create a form in access to allow each accountant
to input their data directly, but if they screw up, then I have bad data in
my database %P

Ideas?
 
If all of the accountants are on the same LAN then giving them each
their own copy of the application FrontEnd as an MDE with the BackEnd
in a folder on the server is the way to go. People are much less
likely to screw up the data entry on a well designed form than in an
Excel spreadsheet.

If the accountants are not all on the same LAN you could try basically
the same thing using Remote Desktop or Terminal Server.

If you must use Excel spreadsheets then you could provide an Excel
template that all of the accountants must use to report their data and
get into your hands. That would freeze the form of the data coming in
to you so you'll only need to deal with the thing you created.

HTH
 
If you must use Excel spreadsheets then you could provide an Excel
template that all of the accountants must use to report their data and
get into your hands. That would freeze the form of the data coming in
to you so you'll only need to deal with the thing you created.
Click to expand...

I'm probably going to end up using an Excel template, but I'm anticipating
that these accountants have their own invoice templates which are linked to
their inventory spreadsheet. They will probably raise Kane if I try to ask
them to migrate over to my template. What can I do about this?
 
I receive telephone data from a number of different suppliers each
month for my clients. Obviously, they all use a different format. I
have devised a number of "translators" - excel files which take the
data in a particular format and convert it into "my" standard format.

If you are not successful in persuading the accountants to change to
your data format, then perhaps you could set out to do something
similar.

Hope this helps.

Pete
 
I suugest the last thing you should do is try to get each company to change
the way in which it submits its data to you. I assume no standardised way
was specified when initial contracts were drawn up. To get all to agree and
follow a standard set by you would probably cause havoc and confusion -
besides which each company may have a valid internal reason for producing
its accounting data in its' own chosen way.

Since we are talking .Net here, it would surely be easier and potentially
less error prone to write a program using the office inter-op libraries, to
convert each company submission to a standard format Access, Excel or
whatever.

One of the great benefits of .Net is that in all areas from chosen
development language to data entry/storage you can allow people to do things
their own way! My experience has been to always let people do things the way
they want, unless there is a very valid reason for not doing so.

Regards
Terry
 
That's a business/political question, not an Access question nor a
technical question.

HTH
 
Hi Terry,

Some of your points simply are not valid:

When I buy something online or by using a check or credit card, the
correct data has to go into the correct space provided by the issuer
of the form (cells in a spreadsheet, etc.). If you think not then
try putting your zip code into the amount space for everything that
you buy... The person or organization at the common point or with the
most situational clout has the initiative: Payers of bills in the
case under consideration; "The Golden Rule; He Who Has the Gold
Rules".

In this case that can well translate into a polite notice that "This
is notice that as of 'pick a date' bills submitted for payment to XYZ
must be entered into a copy of the attached Excel template, which will
be attached to an email from you. After 'pick a date' bills submitted
in any other format will be addressed only after all conforming bills
have been addressed. They will then be paid only after a conversation
with whomever submits the bills for your organization.

We appreciate your cooperation in helping us to control the costs of
doing business by eliminating an unnecessary translation stage in our
facilities.

Thank you.....

Notice that the vendors don't have to agree. They have only to do
what they will. Consequences are already spelled out.

Try the above on your local phone company or other utility provider
and you won't have much success.

If you are a builder and deal with lots of small vendors you'll have
success without complaint. There aren't very many vendors today who
haven't got a PC, email and Excel.

---------------
We are *not* talking .Net here! We are talking Access here. .Net is
down the corridor to your left.... .Net takes in a whole 'nother
universe of things that intersects here only slightly. There are
separate newsgroups for .Net.

---------------------
Laissez faire is a neat ideal. Supposedly, the US economy is operated
as "Laissez Faire Capitalism". However, it becomes ever more
regulated as real and imagined abuses are discovered and politicized.
Laissez faire really works well for independent and solo vacations.
Ahhh!, unstructured time and activities. However, in business,
wherever two or more entities (internal or external) meet, there have
to be rules and the adherence thereto for effective and efficient
exchange of information. In the existing case, it was the lack of
existing rules that caused Original Poster and his organization time
and money.

It will require some time and money to improve the situation to the
point that the stable amount being expended over time to achieve the
same (or better) result is attained.

HTH
 
Larry
I think we are talking different things here. From the phrasing of the
original question I inferred rightly or wrongly that this was some Main
Contract/Sub Contract relationship where the format for submission of
progress reports - including financial - could have been expected to be
resolved at the time of drawing up the relevant contracts.
Clearly the points I made are not appropriate to scenarios you refer to.
I am a bit puzzled as to why you say we are not talking .Net here. This is a
..net newsgroup is it not?

Regards
Terry
 
No. This newsgroup has nothing to do with .Net. It is a newsgroup
for developers helping developers of MS Access, the Relational
Database platform, to resolve specific technical issues. Original
Poster was unsure about using Access or Excel. It seemed that Excel
was the better choice for him.

I believe that the .net newsgroups all have the word "net" embedded in
their names.

HTH
 
The OP posted this in four newsgroups - dotnet.general, Access, Excel
and Excel.misc - so I think we have all read it in different groups
and wondered what the other posters are talking about !!

Pete
 
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