VBA

Opening

VBA is where most of the real logic in an Access database ends up, and it’s usually the part nobody documented. If yours is throwing errors, refusing to compile, or nobody can work out what it does any more, we can help. ☎

Not sure this is what you need? Start with Access support and development or the Microsoft Access overview.

Tidy

Is your VBA code a mess? Inconsistent naming, copy-pasted blocks, dead procedures nobody dares delete, and error handling that got added in one place and not the rest.

We standardise it so it’s clear and logical, and so the next person to open it — us or anybody else — can follow it.

Analysis and testing

Need to get to the bottom of what the database is actually doing?

We work through the code, comment it, and report back on every object: what runs when, what calls what, what’s no longer reachable, and where the risks are. That’s usually the first job on a system somebody else built.

Document

[IMG-1] — A page of genuine documentation output. An object inventory or dependency map, redacted. The deliverable is a document, so show the document.
Alt: Microsoft Access database object documentation report

We produce a full written record of every object in the database: tables, queries, forms, reports, modules and how they depend on each other.

This matters most when the person who built the system has retired, left, or was never a developer. Once it’s written down you’re no longer relying on one person’s memory, and any competent developer can pick it up. Plenty of clients commission this on its own, without any other work attached.

Bigger version of the same problem: Access modernisation

Code tuning

Is bad code causing slowdowns or errors? Loops that re-query the database every pass, recordsets left open, screen redraws nobody suppressed, domain functions doing work a join would do faster.

See Access performance tuning for the wider picture.

Fixing what’s broken

The VBA problems we get called about most:

• Code that compiled fine for years and won’t now, usually after a move to 64-bit Office
• Declare statements and API calls that need PtrSafe and rewriting
• Missing or broken references after an Office update
• Corrupt VBA projects — forms that won’t open in design view
• Errors thrown at users with no handling behind them
• Bloat from a project that needs decompiling
• Old macros that should have become VBA years ago
• Automation into Excel, Word and Outlook that’s stopped working

Access migration and upgrades  for the 32-bit to 64-bit job specifically