New Access user needs database for small bookshop

[equuscycle]

I have a small home-based business (primarily through ebay) and have been
trying to create a database that will allow me to: track inventory, track
which books are sold to which customers and for how much, track all fees
associated with each sale (ebay fees, paypal fees), tell me the amount of
sales within my state for quarterly sales tax, etc. I've tried relying on my
own faulty memory (used to be fairly good with access, but a head injury and
years of not using it are working against me), have asked numerous questions
through Microsoft's forum, and spent several days trying to disect templates
in order to figure it out, and I finally have to admit defeat.

Does anyone know someone in the Colorado Springs area who does freelance
database work for small, struggling businesses, OR know of a good template
for sale that would do what I've outlined above?

THANKS!!!!

 

[Jeff Boyce]

Are you certain you need a database? From your description, I'm wondering
if a commercial accounting/bookkeeping package might not be able to do what
you need?

 

[Ken Snell \(MVP\)]

There are many ACCESS applications that people have develeoped for doing the
types of things that you seek.

If you'd like to get information about some of them, post a munged email
address (with explanation for how to unmunge it) to which people might send
you an email with information.

 

[equuscycle]

I'm not sure what a "munged" email address is, but if you could explain, I'll
give it a try.

Thanks!
Tina

 

[equuscycle]

Jeff - I currently have an Excel spread that tracks this information for me,
but I'm finding that I'm duplicating information when I need to pull
information for month-end/quarter-end reports, and thought a database would
be the best method of tracking everything.

 

[Keith Wilby]

I'm not sure what a "munged" email address is, but if you could explain,
I'll
give it a try.

One that a bot can't harvest. Mine would be keith <at> keithwilby <dot>
com.

Keith.
www.keithwilby.com

 

[equuscycle]

Ah hah! Thanks, Keith!

Tina

One that a bot can't harvest. Mine would be keith <at> keithwilby <dot>
com.

Keith.
www.keithwilby.com

 

[sibob]

I would recommend QuickBooks - it will make it fairly easy and your
local accountant will have a template for it to make it very easy at
tax time.

By the way, if you are looking for live updated sales and use tax rates
around the US or Canada and don't want to bother with purchasing,
integrating and updating a sales tax database each month, you might try
StrikeIron's live sales tax rates xml-based Web service. You simply
provide an address and it provides the corresponding sales and use tax
rates. You can use the Web interface to manually look them up or access
it programmatically as a SOAP or REST based Web service.

http://www.strikeiron.com/ProductDetail.aspx?p=163

Hope this helps

 

[Ted]

There is the free accounting program from Microsoft (surprised they didn't
mention it) called Microsoft Office Accounting Express (2008) which you can
then easily upgrade to the professional (paid) version.
If you write me at MetroTed at gmail dot com we can talk about an Access
solution. Metropolitandata dot net is my site (a free web site from powered
by Microsoft Office Live I might add )