Lately, I have been helping a business customer set up a database to help manage a portion of their business. Databases are highly underutilized in the small to medium sized business. Databases differ greatly to spreadsheets and potentially offer many more benefits to using spreadsheets.
Properly designed and built, a database can save many hours of data entry and reduce entry errors to almost zero. Databases also provide the opportunity to instantly extract subsets of information from the data…this is done through a process called queries. Reporting functions also excel (no pun intended) with databases and can be customized to meet any need.
If you use Quicken, genealogy programs, or even an email address book, you are using a database program. One of the reasons our search engine works so great on our new site is because the site is now essentially a large database. Microsoft Access is the most popular ‘desktop’ database currently in use right now. Access experts who take the time to master it and Visual Basic (a programming language) can build powerful business solutions.
