Most businesses don’t need a database. They need the quoting to stop living in three spreadsheets, or the job sheets to stop being retyped twice, or somebody to be able to answer “where’s that order” without ringing two people.
We’ve been building custom systems for businesses and for local and central government since 1999. The first conversation isn’t about Access. It’s about what currently gets done by hand, what gets missed, and what it costs you.
Design comes before development
The systems that fail are the ones built straight from a list of screens somebody wanted. We start by working through how the job actually moves through the business, including the bits people have stopped mentioning because they’ve always done it that way.
That usually turns up two or three things worth changing before a line of code gets written, and it’s where most of the value in a project comes from. It also means you find out what it’ll cost before you’ve committed to it.
What we build
New Access systems, where Access is genuinely the right answer. Single site, a manageable number of users, Office already licensed, and a need for something working in weeks rather than next year.
Enhancements to a system you already have. New modules, new processes, a part of the business the database never covered. → Access support and development
Front ends onto data that lives elsewhere. An Access interface over SQL Server, so the users get something familiar and the data gets a proper engine underneath.
Replacements for spreadsheet systems. The ones that grew, got shared, got broken, and now have four versions in circulation with the master on someone’s desktop. → why not use Excel as your database
We’ll also tell you when we shouldn’t build it. If a browser-based system is what you actually need, that’s what we’ll quote for →bespoke database and business software
Access doesn’t have to look like 1998
[IMG-2] — The most persuasive image on this page. A real, modern-looking Access front end from a recent job. Clean layout, sensible typography, current Office look. Anonymised data. Nearly everyone arriving on this page has a mental picture of grey 2003 forms, and one screenshot rebuts it faster than any paragraph.
Alt: Modern Microsoft Access front end built by CDE Systems
A well-built Access application looks like a proper piece of software, because the people using it eight hours a day will forgive a lot less than the person signing off the quote.
What that means in practice: forms laid out the way the job is done rather than the way the tables are structured, validation that stops mistakes at the point of entry, keyboard-first for the people doing volume work, and reports that come out finished rather than needing five minutes in Excel afterwards.