access template insurance commission tracking

[Al]

I am an insurance agent/broker.
I would like to set up a tracking system by client, insurance type, 1st year
commissions by month and second and subsequent year renewal commision by
month etc.

 

[Al Camp]

Al,
Perhaps other folks have differing opinions on this, but I really think
you should consider locating some "off the shelf" commercial software.
Insurance account tracking and commissions is a fairly standard matter, and
there are probably reasonably priced packages out there already.
It's quite a project... even for experienced Access developers.

I'd certainly search the web for available apps before committing to such
a large project.

It's similar to folks who ask about building a checkbook accounting
system... why re-invent the wheel. There are many reasonably priced
accounting packages out there.

 

[Al]

Al

Thank you for confirming my thoughts. However, I have not been able to
determine if I can do what I want in either Quickbooks or Microsoft Small
Business Accounting.

Al

 

[Arvin Meyer [MVP]]

My experience is that there is no "off-the-shelf" software which works well
for all scenarios. So what you want is something that you can customize.
I've worked with integrating several accounting systems with custom
applications, including both QuickBooks and MS-Small Business Accounting. Of
the 2, the Microsoft package is far more customizable, and much easier to
integrate with Access or SQL-Server custom applications. QuickBooks requires
expensive ODBC drivers which are excruciatingly slow.

OTOH, if all you want is account tracking and commissions, you may not find
exactly what you want in any "off-the-shelf" software. Unless one of the
companies you do business with already has such an application, you may need
a custom application to do your requirement. If there are no bells and
whistles, it shouldn't be too difficult to build a small application to do
this. Look at your budget and your time and make the determination whether
it's better for you to learn to do it yourself (with our free help as
necessary) or you should hire a professional. Unless you are too busy, I'd
suggest learning to do it yourself. You'll get an appreciation for a more
sophisticated application, should you actually need one in the future.
--
Arvin Meyer, MCP, MVP
Microsoft Access
Free Access downloads
http://www.datastrat.com
http://www.mvps.org/access