Charity Project, Please Help if you've got a Minute.

Hello all,

I'm trying to help out a charity which refurbishes baby equipment (cots, prams etc) to give to the underpriveleged. The charity gives work to the long-term unemployed & to those with mental health issues &, needless to say, doesn't have too much time to spend with databases.

I am trying to help them to create a very basic stock management system so that their workers can feel more involved & that they can keep track of what has been brought in, checked & sold. however, I am not very good at this & would like someone to point me in the right direction. We've got MS Access on the Charity's machine & we'd like to create a simple access project to do what I've outlined below.

If anyone can give me a hand, I'd be grateful. I think it might take a guru about an hour but fear it'll take me a year.

Thanks

Jim

Stock Control

Items are brought into the workshop & registered
Items inspected & tested & then added to stock
Items sold

Identifying features

• Item type (eg Pushchair, highchair, pram, cot)
• Item code (shorthand for the name)
• Date received (date the item has been brought in & registered)
• Date added to stock
• Stock number (unique ID for that stock part)
• Date sold


What the database project needs to be able to do:

• Add item types & codes
• View item by stock number
• Register received item
• Add item to stock
• Register item & add it to stock at the same time
• Adjust stock levels



Reporting tasks for the project:

• Number of items of a particular type
• Number of items registered this week
• Number of items added to stock this week
• Number of items added to stock between two dates

If you use the search facility (up a bit on the title bar) and search for szlamany and stock you should get some good examples. Ok so they are in Sql server, but the principle is the same.


As to the development, leave the reporting to last.

Have a table for items, autonumber for the primary key id (first field) then the text code you want to assign it, the name of the item and perhaps a description.

Then the stock control table has a bank balance type input (perhaps) where you can only add new records that add/subtract from stock, but you cannot update an old record.

If you use a status for the stock item, then you would need an update ability... status being : received, to be checked, requires mending, available, sold, dumped, recycled...

Stock levels would be using a query that totals all the items inputted into the bank balance type section.


There are various ways to do this type of product and possibly an off-the-shelf stock system may be available (ms product perhaps?) which would work just as well. depends if you have the time to make one and the motivation to follow it all the way through.

Thank you for your help but there are a few (lot of) things that I'm not sure about.

How might I creat a bank balance-type field?

What stock programs might be available for free to do simple stuff like this (I have had a quick look at download.com under the word stock but all I get is stock market programs.

What is the update ability you mention? Can I do this using an update query?

I had a look for some of szlamany's stuff but there was too much of it. Are there any particular posts I should pay attention to?

Sorry to be vague but I'm just finding my way here.

Thanks

Jim

Try "Inventory" instead of "Stock". You may find more that way.