Should you choose Excel or Access to manage your data?

• The type of data you are managing

• What you want to do with that data

When deciding which program to use, consider:

Excel Works Well with Flat File Data

• Performing sophisticated calculations

• Analyzing complex numerical data

Excel works very well when:

• Creating What-If scenarios

• Customizing charts

What If. . .You want to determine a purchase price for a home with a monthly payment of $450.00?

Excel Pivot Tables Summarize and Analyze Complex Data

Excel Supports Many Types of Charts

• Managing repeated data

• Entering large amounts of data

Access works better than Excel when…

• Generating detailed reports

Avoid the Problem of Repeated Data

Access can handle this problem if you break apart different data sets into logical pieces and place them into separate tables

Separate Data into Tables

Sales Reps

Customers

Multiple Tables can be Related by a Common Field

Sales Reps• RepID• Name• Address• City• State• Zip• DateHired• District

Customers• CustID• Name• Address• City• State• Zip• RepID

Orders• InvNumber• OrderDate• ShippingDate• CustID• TotalSales

Customized forms in Access enable users to enter data easily and accurately

Related Data Can be Pulled from Multiple Tables

One Sales Rep

Has Many Customers

Reporting capabilities in Access make it very quick and easy to generate sophisticated reports from tables or queries

Use Excel for: Use Access for:

Flat file data Relational or repeated data

Calculations and analysis of numerical data Data entry for large data sets

Customized charts Relational forms

What-if scenarios Detailed relational reports

Compare Benefits of Both Excel and Access

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