Creating Billing System, self taught, and confused!

[LethalMeatball]

Hey, I am new to the forums, but have been reading things on here to try and get the hang of it. I have many questions, but I am only going to start with a few. First off: I am creating a billing system for a non-profit child-care program. They are in desperate need of a new billing system, as the last time it was updated was 2001. This was originally programmed in Access 97, and I am trying to improve a few things, and update it so they have a smoother system. I have a form completed that creates new children with all of their parent's information for billing/contact information.



My first question is a simple one: How do I make a drop down menu that has every current child in the program, so that I can easily search for one, and then have it pull all of their info up?

Second question: Now that I have all the contact info, how would I go about creating an input form for their hours used/price they pay so I can start accumulating what they owe, and then once I figure that out, I will need some help understanding how to do a 30, 60, 90. I have been looking at this post: On 30, 60, 90's but I am confused as to how this works with what info I have.

Thanks everyone for your help, you guys know a ton, and I really hope to understand this a little better with the help of everyone on here! Thanks again!

[June7]

Here is one method for the search: http://datapigtechnologies.com/flash...tomfilter.html

I have nothing to add for the account aging question. You will have to be more specific about what you don't understand. Have you attempted code?

[AlexHedley]

My first question is a simple one: How do I make a drop down menu that has every current child in the program, so that I can easily search for one, and then have it pull all of their info up?

I take it there is a Table that stores all children?
Is there something in this Table that states whether the Child is current, maybe a boolean?

You could create a Query:
SELECT ChildID, Name FROM tblChild WHERE IsCurrent = TRUE

Save this and then drag a combo onto the Form.
Call it cboChild.
You can then base the combo on this Query.

Do you have a Form that has all the information on it that you want to open? [frmChild]

You can then add a button to the Form.
Add in it's OnClick event.
DoCmd.OpenForm "frmChild", , "WHERE ChildID=" & cboChild

Now this should open the Form with that Child's info.

expression .OpenForm(FormName, View, FilterName, WhereCondition, DataMode, WindowMode, OpenArgs)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr.../ff820845.aspx

[LethalMeatball]

I don't really know VB, so like I said, I am pretty novice when it comes to this. Thanks for that video, that helped a lot! I will post in a few minutes a little more on what I don't understand! Thanks for the fast response!

[LethalMeatball]

Sorry to not respond yesterday, I was quite busy with other work. I am writing this for a non-profit organization, and seeing as I am so novice, I posted here. I guess to show how far down the totem pole I am, I will state where I am at, and what I feel the next step would be, and hopefully someone can help clarify how to go about that step. I finished, as I said earlier, the new student forms. From that I have info for the child, their school, parents, parents contact/billing info, and additional contacts for emergencies/authorized pickups. This is about as far as I have gotten. The things I need to do next, is to devise a way to track hours that the child is in the program. We keep a record on paper, but we need to enter it into the computer. Would I need to create a table that this would be entered into, or what is a good way to track that info and have it directly connected to the child. I am still pretty novice at queries and whatnot, but am willing to put in the effort to figure it out! Thanks for your help guys!

[June7]

Need another table for the attendance information. Table will have a field to save the childID as a foreign key. One way to do the data entry is with a form/subform arrangement. Main form bound to child table and subform bound to attendance table. Find child record or enter new child on main form and enter attendance records in subform.

Or have a stand alone form bound to the attendance table and select child from combobox.

[LethalMeatball]

So if I am making the stand alone form bound to the attendance table, will this keep a running tally of how many hours are used? We enter them in once a week. So will a form that I enter in each week overlap? This is also important for when I get to creating statements and invoices. I know I am barely scratching the surface, so I really appreciate your guys' help!

[June7]

That's just data entry. Queries manipulate data. Use a report to show the aggregate total of hours for each attendee.

You enter a single value for the entire week for each child? Why would there be overlap?

You have a long way to go. This thread could go on forever with question after question. Not the best way to learn what is really elementary knowledge. You need to learn basics of relational database principles, Access functionality, programming concepts, and macros and/or VBA coding. Suggest you get an introductory tutorial book and complete it before tackling your own project.