Building a Report

[invitro]

My knowledge of access is quite limited, and I'm posting to see if this is even possible before I start my project.

What I have is a simple database with 2 tables.

Customers
Order

When a customer comes into my store, I would like to create a work order digitally though access without having it all done on paper. A work order is basically a physical piece of paper that specifies what jobs I am currently doing for my customer. Something like this...


Header--------
Company Name
Customer Information

-
Job #1 Business Cards - $112.00 - Finished - Due Sep 1, 05
Job #2 Web Design - $55.00 - In Progress - Due Sep 22, 05
Job #3 Graphic Design - $800 - In Progress - Due Nov 02, 06
-

Customer Signature
Disclaimer
Etc. Etc....
Footer--------

The most important thing I want to have is the ability to create several work orders for each customer. When I speak to them in order to grab their order, I want to be able to type the entire order into my computer then click print work order and have it print out something like you see on the top. Then, if they come back in 2 weeks I want to be able to create a new work order.

The Header is static
Footer is also static as well
The only thing that changes is what’s inside the - - marks, in this example the Business Cards and Web Design service. I want it to list each ordered item or service for that specific work order.

Can this be done in access using a report?
I'm guessing I would need an additional Table, called Workorder. Then, I was planning on linking the WorkorderID with an OrderID inside the Order table.

The only problem is displaying the data. I've played around with reports and it looks very limited. First, I can't seem to be able to make a "search" function so I can do a lookup. For instance, if I typed in the OrderID into a box I'd like the order pop out at me. Second, it seems like you can only have static reports, something like I've described above with multiple orders might not be possible. Again, I've been programming for a while but know very little about access so this is a little intimidating.

Thanks for looking into this

[Hack]

How are you at Visual Basic?

What you describe could easily be accomplished with a VB frontend to your backend Access Database.

The workorder could/would be saved (and, Yes, I think a workorder table would be in order with a CustomerId field in it that would link it back to the Customer table) in a table. You could use an Access report to print the workorder, and when you did not want to print it, but only look at it, you could query your table for the necessary information and display it on a VB built form.

[invitro]

Thanks for the reply,

I'm fine with VB.
However, does access not have the functionality to build a form that extracts data the way I want it? Do I have to dig up VB6 or .NET, or are you talking about the VB inside of access.

I don't think a front-end would be a problem. Other then of course time consuming, I will look into it.

Thanks again.