It won’t blow the budget.

Microsoft Access is an all in one package that comes with everything you need to store large amounts of data securely, create forms for users to access the data and provide means of manipulating and analyzing the data. Although you need someone with the right skills to achieve this, in practical terms this means that complex applications can be developed at very affordable prices. Also, because there is usually little requirement for post project support or administration, ongoing costs are minimal.

Software designed to your exact requirements.

When starting a new Access project you begin with a completely blank piece of paper. Therefore the finished application can look, feel and behave exactly as you want it to. After you begin using it, if you decide that your original design doesn’t quite meet your real world requirements you simply tweak the design until you are happy.

Easy to use interfaces.

Access comes equipped with all of the standard Windows user interface tools such as buttons, text boxes, dropdowns which can be incorporated on forms to create very accessible user interfaces which, if well designed, look no different than any other windows application.

Your data all in one place.

The beauty of an all in one Access solution is that all of your data is in one place making analysis, administration and security very easy. Data duplication can be a thing of the past – even if you are linking to data in other applications, the data itself can all be viewed and analyzed in one place thus making for significant gains in efficiency.

Powerful Data Analysis.

Although Access is primarily known as a database one of its other key strengths is its ability to provide powerful data analysis through queries and reports. Such data analysis is possible regardless of whether the data is held in Access itself or another entirely independent source such as Excel, SQL Server or Oracle. Also, where a direct link can’t be established, it is easy to export data from third party applications such as Sage products, and analyze within Access. It is also possible to mix and match so one Access application can be linked to a number of different data sources to produce combined analysis.

Effortless scalability.

Access is equally at home building a solution to increase the efficiency of a single employee or a solution that does likewise for a whole company. It can easily grow between these two scenarios in manageable stages, and should your business, and your requirements, grow to a size that stretches Access’s capabilities then upsizing to an enterprise database solution would be no obstacle.

Skills can be developed in house.

Whilst the initial development of complex solutions usually require a professional Access developer, it is perfectly feasible to train members of your own team to perform enhancements, create reports and perform data analysis thus reducing costs further.