Blair,

How much programming experience do you have? If you do not any programming
experience, and no database experience, you have a very loooong road ahead of
you. Please don't let me discourage you. There is a Chinese proverb that
state "A trip of 10,000 miles starts with the first step". I just want you
to be aware of what is ahead of you.

I've been programming mid-range computers using relational databases for
over 20 years. Then I got to Access and I've had a huge learning curve, I've
been at it part time for about a year and am still in learning process.

That being said, even given the huge learning curve, Access does simplify
developing database. It makes it very easy to do some very nice things.

Before you even worry about Access and whether or not you can do this
project, you have to define the project. From reading your response, I'm not
quite sure you have done that yet. A project definition can be a couple of
paragraphs to multiple pages long. Yes, you need to be that specific.

In this, you need to specifically define that it is you want to do. You can
not say we want to "look after inventory ordering and stocking". You need
to be much more specific. Below are some SIMPLE questions that need to be
answered before you can event start to think about doing this project. It is
by no means a complete list. These are just a FEW questions!

How will you maintain the ordering and stocking level? Do you want to data
entry screen to record the amount on order as order are issued to your
suppliers or are you going to manually maintain the amount on order number?
How are you going to handle receiving amount less that ore more that what you
ordered. How are you going to handle items on back order from your vendors?
How will you handle having multiple vendors for a part (and therefore
multiple order part numbers and potentially multiple prices?

Will you have a minimum on quantity on hand amount that if the inventory
drop below this point, it will appear on a report. Will you have a maximum
order amount so that you can not accidentally order too much?

How will you record how much inventory was used today? How will you record
how much inventory was returned today? (Sometime stuff goes out, but is then
returned back to inventory - kind of like customer returns.) What will be
internal procedures to make sure returned items are posted back to the proper
inventory item. How will you take inventory the very first time?

These are just a FEW of the questions you need to asked and have answered
before you even beginning starting this project.


Again, I would strongly suggest you look at the links to the MS Inventory
template I provide above. You can download it for free. It is a complete
Access database with the tables, input screens (forms), the programming
behind each form (code), and queries.

Maybe once you study that example, you might be in a better position to
start defining what you want.

One other thing you might consider and that is the TIME it will take you to
build something versus buying an existing inventory control product.


--


Dennis