Pulling info from accounting software to do Invoice reviews

[TinaC]

My company currently uses an access database to run queries, reports, etc.
from our accounting system CODA because CODA is not user friendly. My first
question is "Is it possible?"

We are a management company that pays for our clients vendor invoices and
then turns around and bill them to the client as one invoice. I am new to
this company and have been brought on to make process improvements.
Currently we are printing off a report (anywhere from 300-800 pages per legal
entity) and going through each line one at a time. I have a few problems
with this... First, that is a LOT of paper. Second, we cannot report on the
errors found since its paper.

This is what I would like to do...someone please tell me if it is possible.

From the main database form I would like to bring up the clients
informations, Once the form is open I would like to choose a period of
invoices to bring up in a subform (April, 2008). That part I believe I can
do...

We are pulling the invoice data from an excel spreadsheet downloaded
directly from coda. Each time the spreadsheet is opened new data appears.
My current paperless method is update the spreadsheet, sort by input date,
and copy into another excel spreadsheet and save as a working file. I add a
few columns that allow me to show progress and reporting (Discrepancy,
Responsible, Status, Date Reviewed). The next week I update the spreadsheet
again, sort by input date, and copy anything after the last date into the
working file. I would like my subform to be the same concept.

 

[Albert D. Kallal]

My company currently uses an access database to run queries, reports, etc.
from our accounting system CODA because CODA is not user friendly. My
first
question is "Is it possible?"

Your statement is little bit contradictory, your first sentence says you
currently use an access database to run reports from your accounting system,
and the last sentence you ask is it possible? so which is it?

From the main database form I would like to bring up the clients
informations, Once the form is open I would like to choose a period of
invoices to bring up in a subform (April, 2008). That part I believe I
can
do...

The above says yes to me that you have some kind of interface to this
accounting package, and you're able to pull data out from it using
ms-access.

If you not actually pulling data directly from the accounting system, then
you're gonna have to talk to the software vendor of that accounting package
and ask then any interface technology that allows external products to
connect to and pull data from that system. the most common interface these
days for these types assistance is what we call ODBC (open database
connectivity). I would simply ask the company is it possible to get a
connection to the database through ODBC, and if the answer is yes, then you
should be able to accomplish your goals.

The only part that can get really difficult and complex in this system, is
often these accounting systems have many many normalized tables of data, so
a simple listing of a customer might involve fifteen or twenty normalized
tables of data that you have to build and desing to pull the data out in a
meaningful fashion. however, were getting ahead of ourselves here. If the
vendor the software package doesn't offering external interface to their
accounting software, then you're not gonna be able to use MS access in this
scenario (unless you use some the exporting abilities of the accounting
package, and perhaps export of excel, or perhaps export as a comma delimited
file, and then import that data into MS access).

This is not really an access question, because we don't really know if we
can use MS access here, and you'll have to talk to the vendor or your IT
department if this is possible .

The next week I update the spreadsheet
again, sort by input date, and copy anything after the last date into the
working file. I would like my subform to be the same concept.

Well is no question you can import the data from the spreadsheets to inside
that of MS access. So if you're looking for the vendor (customer) lists, and
the accounting package can export that vendor list, then should be able to
import it into MS access. If the ledger/accounting information you export
from the accounting pccakge has some kind of customer ID that you can link
back to this vendors list, then you should be able to accomplish your goal.