7 Ways Microsoft Access Can Help Your Business
Almost every business in the world uses Microsoft Excel. For creating simple spreadsheets, it’s probably the best piece of software in the world. But as a company grows and spreadsheets become more complicated, Excel will show its limitations. This is where Microsoft Access comes in.
When your company is managing large datasets, it might be time to start considering migrating your data to Access. MS Access is an excellent software program that can streamline your accounting, product management, and more.
Here are 7 ways Microsoft Access can support your business functions:
1. Easy to Develop a Custom Database
The main function of Microsoft Access is the creation of custom databases. The impressive functionality allows you to work with large datasets and keep information in a structured manner. Whether you’re working with client data or your own, this can be extremely important for both security and time management.
Creating a custom database can be extremely useful for multiple business processes including inventory time management, project management, and more. Microsoft Access Development is the most versatile solution for creating a custom database for your business. Rather than purchase an off the shelf solution that may not fit the bill, companies can create a custom solution that works exactly how they need it.
Microsoft Access comes with a lot of great templates to choose from, take a look and see if one of them can help, keep in mind they can be modified as needed or made more powerful with custom features using VBA code.
2. Maintain Consistency
When it comes to working with data, it’s important to maintain consistency. With Microsoft Access, you can minimize any inconsistencies or mistakes caused by human error. This is thanks to the ability to automate processes in Access. Instead of recording data by hand, Access can pull data from multiple different sources and even identify discrepancies in the data. For example, if your business made an average of 200 sales a day and then suddenly 2000 were recorded, you could find out with an Access query.
Accounting is one of the business processes where consistency is vital. Throughout the year, the numbers behind a business need to be recorded accurately and consistently. When this data is recorded in Excel (or another spreadsheet program), there is a huge potential for human error. Using Access can remove this risk of human error through automation.
3. Security with free SQL Server Express
When paired with the free SQL Server Express server from Microsoft, your data is protected from prying eyes:
- Data protection: You can limit who sees what tables, allowing only authorized employees to see credit card so social security numbers.
- User permissions: If you pair SQL Server with your Active Directory groups you can use code to grant specific groups of users permissions to certain parts of the system. For example, you can limit administrative features to only the administrators group.
- Data Encryption: SQL Server can also enforce encryption between the server and Access, avoiding the man in the middle attack.
4. Accessibility
Microsoft Access is also relatively easy to use. For existing MS Office users, the interface is intuitive. However, to build complex databases, employees will require some training. The simplicity and scalability of MS Access are both huge benefits – it can be used by everyone from untrained staff to Microsoft Access consultants.
Another benefit of Microsoft Access is that you can use it on both Windows and Mac computers. However, in order to do this, you will have to use a remote desktop.
5. Product Database
Microsoft Access is a great platform to use to store business inventory. When your business grows, you will need to create more complex spreadsheets that contain product information and sales figures. You can’t expect all your staff to remember lengthy names, descriptions or codes associated with each item in the database. This is where Microsoft Access comes into play – it allows users to search for items by name, code or description, and even export the data into an Excel spreadsheet. This is also useful for monitoring stock levels.
6. Easy to Migrate Databases
Microsoft Access is the most popular database software in the world and it has been around since 1992. That means the developers have had plenty of time to make it user-friendly. This user-friendly design extends past the actual storing of data into more complicated tasks like migrating data. You can easily migrate datasets from other database programs and use Microsoft data tools like SQL Server.
7. Cost-Effective
As your business expands, it will need to store more data. Hiring a third-party company to manage your data storage can be expensive, so it’s more cost-effective to keep it in-house. That means you need data storage software. Microsoft Access is not only one of the best, it’s also one of the most affordable. First, it comes with an affordable price tag, which means that businesses of any size can buy it. In addition, updates are released annually so you can continue using the latest version of Access for free.
You are probably already paying for a professional edition of MS Office, which means you don’t need to spend extra for Access. Along with the other benefits in this article, the affordability of MS Access makes it hard for alternative solutions to compete with.
Need Microsoft Access advice?
At Access Experts, we have a wide knowledge of both Microsoft Access and Microsoft SQL Server. We can help with everything, from simple Access SQL integration to more complicated Access tasks.
For more info contact us today.
