Hi I do the accounts for a small playgroup (poor charity!) and I work more hours than I get paid for ...We can't afford a 'package' and also we want ease of tranfer between users (management changes yearly) - I have set up the accounts etc around Office. I'm not an expert and it isn't perfect but it is workable -just...
I have a basic Access database with all the contact details, attendance and funded/non-funded (about 50:50) etc. I use queries to transfer contacts between our databases (pre-playgroup group, waiting list, playgroup, left playgroup, and delete after 6yrs) - think I can only do this in Access?
I use Excel (lots of linked files) to do the payroll and accounts and budgetting ... and for the fees - I have sheets with each child's daily attendance linked to a summary sheet for each period.
I use Word for producing the invoices for the parents ....which we have just started producing monthly (4 times as many as before) and we have also introduced a tear off slip to return with payment... result - little irritations are starting to become big ones!
I have a word doc that I use as a template depending on season (not a .dot but .doc) - I update the dates etc and use this to do a mail merge from the access database. This inserts the parent contacts and childs name and into a table the regular attendance days and also their daily fee (ie £0 for funded children) - both types pay for snack... I use word formulas to calculate the invoice totals. I then edit individual letters (most are the same- a few need tweaking)....
The two main things that irritate me are...
First I have to manually change the invoice numbers (current format is year and then an increasing number - ie this year 12/001, 12/002 etc)
Secondly I have to type the total amount due in the tear off slip at the bottom (or copy and past from the table but quicker to type) Pre-merge I can bookmark and cross reference this..but after it doesn't work....
I feel there must be a way of doing this automatically .....is there?
(A macro? Used Record Macro in Excel successfully..but can't seem to highlight anything while using it Word - for tear off slip - thinking page down, highlight copy, select paste )
Or is there a better way of producing the invoices altogether - don't think my old computer can handle an Excel and Access linked word merge file....if you can do that...or just in Access linked to excel (beyond my knowledge!)?
Any suggestions?