Order entry and tracking system

[mike60smart]

I am looking at what is best to create the dummy GUI - I was thinking Powerpoint which I have used before but ChatGP suggests Figma which I have never heard of or used.

Hi Alex
Have you started putting together any tables in Access yet?

If you have then upload a zipped copy and we can then advise much easier.

 

[LarryE]

I do have a template for building products that incorporates vendor purchase orders, customer orders, product build inventory details and employee labor costs, but I don't know if that will meet your needs until you answer some important questions:

1. How does your current vendor purchase order process work?
2. How does your current customer order process work?
3. Do you want to include employee labor time in your product cost calculations?
4. How do customers pay you? Do you present an invoice at the end of the build process?
5. Do you always build custom to suit lighting designs or do you build several makes and models of products and keep them in inventory for later sale?

This will be a long process so get ready for that. All of these kinds of questions need to be answered before any ACCESS design is built from scratch or re-built from an existing template. All ACCESS designs follow the workflow process first, then tables are designed and relationships established. You already gave us some sense of what kinds of information you wish to track so that is good, but we need to know how those fields are going to be used and what they are so we can determine which tables they belong in. All of these things will be at least a start.

 

[Pat Hartman]

The Northwind dev edition is the only sample I have ever come across that even attempts to handle inventory. So, if you need your application to also manage your inventory, we need to help you to get the dev version up and running. You may still not be able to use it as is but at least it handles inventory in a rational way. If you don't need to manage inventory, the problem becomes simpler.

 

[AlexT]

I am looking at what is best to create the dummy GUI - I was thinking Powerpoint which I have used before but ChatGP suggests Figma which I have never heard of or used.

Hi Alex
Have you started putting together any tables in Access yet?

If you have then upload a zipped copy and we can then advise much easier.

Hi Mike,
I am currently creating a menu GUI so I can determine what I really require. I will post it soon.

 

[AlexT]

The Northwind dev edition is the only sample I have ever come across that even attempts to handle inventory. So, if you need your application to also manage your inventory, we need to help you to get the dev version up and running. You may still not be able to use it as is but at least it handles inventory in a rational way. If you don't need to manage inventory, the problem becomes simpler.

Hi Pat,
I am not looking to handle Inventory other than load a Product from the database. I may look at expanding it later but in the first instance I simply want to create a system for entering Customer orders and then tracking them through the production process andpossibly automatcially creating the shipping labels and a standalone invoice.

 

[AlexT]

I do have a template for building products that incorporates vendor purchase orders, customer orders, product build inventory details and employee labor costs, but I don't know if that will meet your needs until you answer some important questions:

1. How does your current vendor purchase order process work?
2. How does your current customer order process work?
3. Do you want to include employee labor time in your product cost calculations?
4. How do customers pay you? Do you present an invoice at the end of the build process?
5. Do you always build custom to suit lighting designs or do you build several makes and models of products and keep them in inventory for later sale?

This will be a long process so get ready for that. All of these kinds of questions need to be answered before any ACCESS design is built from scratch or re-built from an existing template. All ACCESS designs follow the workflow process first, then tables are designed and relationships established. You already gave us some sense of what kinds of information you wish to track so that is good, but we need to know how those fields are going to be used and what they are so we can determine which tables they belong in. All of these things will be at least a start.

Hi Larry,
I will have a graphical mockup of the process soon. In the first instance am only looking for a system to handle Customer Orders. I don't need 1. Vendor orders, 3. Labor time calcs.
Payments from customers vary. Website sales are prepaid and sales to wholesalers are invoiced for payment on the 20th of the following month. We use Xero for that. It is not necessary to have a totally integrated system for our business as opposed to having modules that do their task well.

 

[AlexT]

I've been importing bits and pieces of Northwind Starter which seems to be more stable. Is Northwind in a trusted location?

Not sure what truseted location means I will read on it.