Access dB?
 

So, the booking and documentation process used by the former manager for the rental venue is way too manual. There’s a bunch of contracts and other documents, paper folders to store them in, printed checklists, and Excel spreadsheets to track everything.

I want to build a more streamlined and basically paperless process. I’m thinking of a database where each rental is a record, that feeds to documents to print or Docusign, Quicken to keep the books and run reports, a calendar, a tasklist, alerts to task dates and completion.

Or maybe there is off the shelf software for running a rental venue? I’d rather buy than build.

Anyone know about this stuff?

No help on the software but first I’d analyze the process and determine if any of those components can be eliminated.

Looked at this why I was considering an event management software package:

https://www.skedda.com/

There a several similar cloud-based packages like Skedda to consider as well. Some are more venue management focused and others are more marketing/sales focused. Event Temple was another.

https://www.eventtemple.com/

I built a ton of Access apps for various small office or project-based requirements over years of IT consulting. I always enjoyed solving a problem using Access (it became a joke around my office that I never saw a problem I couldn't solve with it). But there is a steep learning curve to it, particularly if you want to really take advantage of some of the cooler features including integrating with Excel, Word, Outlook, etc. I always enjoyed coding / customizing with Visual Basic, so it was fun for me.

If you just want to build a few tables, relationships, and create your own entry and reporting forms, then it's not too bad, particularly if you enjoy that kind of learning and challenge. Otherwise, I'd look for something off-the-shelf.

Thanks! I’ll check out Skedda. As for Access, I’ve long thought it was something I should learn about, and just thought of another project I could do with it.

Using a database to keep the data that an application runs "on top" of has many choices. I had over 14 years of database administration before retiring for good several years ago and I'll list the products I have used and their plusses and minuses.

1. Oracle: Plus = best security, fastest queries, no limits on size and best help/forums/support/graphical explaining. Minus = complicated to learn well, expensive unless you use the free version which has some features deleted and takes a lot of power to run well.

2. Microsoft SQL Server: About all the same as Oracle except it is a target for hackers. It is the database Sony was using when their system was hacked years ago on the Black Friday weekend and lost user connectivity.

3. MySQL: Now owned by Oracle and the free version has many tutorials and is easier to learn. Their paid version has all the + and - that Oracle has.

4. PostgreSQL: Not as powerful as Oracle and has a decent free version. Is used in many Colleges and Universities. Has decent tutorials to help students get up to speed quickly.

5. Microsoft Access: Usually comes with a full Office sweet of software, has a ton of on line tutorials to help learn it. Negatives are poor security, not adapted well for multi user (poor web support), if used on a laptop the menu at the top of the screen is impossible to see easily. But it's free!

There are others but these are the ones I have worked with over the years and remember good security should be #1 priority as all these I mentioned have good tutorials and are about the same to learn. Any web based application should come with the underlying database all setup.
John

There is also MariaDB which is a fork of MySQL (due to Oracle and the way they didn't handle open source patches) and is a drop in replacement.