Hey all -
WHY I NEED HELP
I hope this finds you well. I'm a small business owner (financial advisor) and spend my day wearing all employment hats to keep my practice going. After 5 years in the business, I'm at a turning point where my excel based system is too inefficient and taking too much time away from me working with my clients. I'm tech savvy but have little experience in Access. I can handle tutorials and learning the program but I need your help on a database design to match my current workflow so I can effectively use my time when learning the program.
CURRENT WORKFLOW EXPLAINED
My current system consists of 7+ excel sheets--all with multiple tabs--and is rife with inefficiency. I've put together a diagram of my current work flow to give you guys a better idea of how my business works. Hopefully this will help guide your suggestions but I'm happy to provide more details if they would be helpful. The diagram can be broken into 3 elements:
- The grey boxes represent excel sheets for specific parts of my business
- The arrows and text leading to other grey boxes show how clients move through the different sheets and why
- The yellow comment sections explain what the excel sheet is used for and what it contains\
PROBLEMS I'VE IDENTIFIED WITH MY CURRENT SYSTEM
- I'm in data entry mode too much - there are way too many excel sheets that contain the same data (name, contact info etc.)
- It's difficult to develop real time reports without spending my day crunching numbers and looking at different sheets
- I'ts a pain to have 3 different excel windows open to input data on one client
- Certain sheets do not have up to date information on clients
- It integrates poorly with other programs
- I am having a hard time scaling my business because the infrastructure is so fragmented
WHAT I NEED HELP WITH
- Identifying how to integrate my current workflow into access e.g. what tables would you recommend? should I use multiple forms for different purposes? how should I leverage relationships to maintain data integrity?
- What macros, queries, etc. would be useful to help with automation?
- What areas of my current workflow do you identify that could greatly benefit from Access integration?
- Any resources that you would suggest as far as learning to implement your specific suggestions.
A BIG THANK YOU IN ADVANCE
I wanted to just say thanks in advance. To most of you, this stuff is second nature and I'm really counting on your experience to help me design a more efficient way for me to work in my business. There are limited hours in the day and I'm feeling SO strapped on time putting in 60 hour work weeks... this is an area I've identified that could be a huge time saver with the right guidance.
As mentioned above - let me know if I can clarify anything!