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From: A.Finnegan on 16 Jun 2008 21:33
I am attempting to create a database that will mainly handle transfers of
materials between dealers. This is an aerial application business, so
dealers bring us chemicals that we apply on crops. Dealers are responsible
for providing us with the correct amount of chemicals for the fields they
need sprayed. We can't always use their specific chemical. All of our 15 or
so dealers bring the same chemicals, so we often use one dealer's chemical on
another's field. I need to keep track of this debit/credit system, so I
always know who owes who what. I am having trouble implementing this idea
into Access so any transaction or transfer will deduct and add the chemical
to the dealers involved in the transfer.
Basically like this:
Dealer A transfers 40 gallons of chemical Z to Dealer B. Both Dealers had
60 gallons of chemical Z sprayed for the day.
At the beginning of the day Dealer A had 120 gallons, Dealer B had 50.
So, after all is said and done, Dealer A should have 20 gallons, Dealer B
should have 30.
I need a way to keep track of the transfer and the amount sprayed for each
day.
Any thoughts and suggestions would be much appreciated.
From: Fred on 17 Jun 2008 08:26
On an application like this, I think that once you can explicitly 100% define
what you want to to, you are 90% done. So here's working on the 90%.

Can you tell us what the mission of this DB is? You said that you want to
"track". Literally that's just writing down things like on a Word document or
clay tablet. Being a DB, it's also implicit that you'd like to prepare
summaries, reports etc. Are there any other specific missions? You also
briefly noted tracking the inventory levels at all of the dealers. If so,
that's a biggee....it's creating and implementing inventory tracking systems
for all of these chemicals at companies (dealers) Amongst other things,
that would include entering every inventory-affecting transaction that
occurse at each of those dealers. Is that what you want to do?



"A.Finnegan" wrote:

> I am attempting to create a database that will mainly handle transfers of
> materials between dealers. This is an aerial application business, so
> dealers bring us chemicals that we apply on crops. Dealers are responsible
> for providing us with the correct amount of chemicals for the fields they
> need sprayed. We can't always use their specific chemical. All of our 15 or
> so dealers bring the same chemicals, so we often use one dealer's chemical on
> another's field. I need to keep track of this debit/credit system, so I
> always know who owes who what. I am having trouble implementing this idea
> into Access so any transaction or transfer will deduct and add the chemical
> to the dealers involved in the transfer.
> Basically like this:
> Dealer A transfers 40 gallons of chemical Z to Dealer B. Both Dealers had
> 60 gallons of chemical Z sprayed for the day.
> At the beginning of the day Dealer A had 120 gallons, Dealer B had 50.
> So, after all is said and done, Dealer A should have 20 gallons, Dealer B
> should have 30.
> I need a way to keep track of the transfer and the amount sprayed for each
> day.
> Any thoughts and suggestions would be much appreciated.
From: Klatuu on 17 Jun 2008 10:46
I did this once a long time ago for a city's shared inventory system. For
example, Parks and Recreation has 100 feet of pipe and Streets has 50 feet of
pipe. Streets needs to install 80 feet of pipe. This takes 3 transactions.
1. Deduct 30 feet from Parks and Recreation
Transaction Type Transfer Out.
Transfer Number 30002 (to tie the in and out together for
accounting/audit)
2. Add 30 feet to Streets
Transaction Type Transfer In.
Transfer Number 30002 (to tie the in and out together for
accounting/audit)
3. Deduct 80 feet from Street
Transaction Type Consumed

So each transaction applies to a specific vendor. To do a transer takes two
transactions, one for out and one for in. Each Transaction needs a type.
Received, Consumed, Destroyed, Returned, Transfered Out, Transfered In, etc.
When you do a transfer, you need a field to tie the two transactions
together for accounting, audit, and tracking purposes.

Although you may have 500 gallons of a product sitting on the floor, you
should not carry that as one quantity in inventory. You carry the quantity
in inventory by dealer. Your table structure should, however, allow you to
be able to know the total inventory of the product. So you need something
like
ProductID
DealerID
QtyOnHand

--
Dave Hargis, Microsoft Access MVP


"A.Finnegan" wrote:

> I am attempting to create a database that will mainly handle transfers of
> materials between dealers. This is an aerial application business, so
> dealers bring us chemicals that we apply on crops. Dealers are responsible
> for providing us with the correct amount of chemicals for the fields they
> need sprayed. We can't always use their specific chemical. All of our 15 or
> so dealers bring the same chemicals, so we often use one dealer's chemical on
> another's field. I need to keep track of this debit/credit system, so I
> always know who owes who what. I am having trouble implementing this idea
> into Access so any transaction or transfer will deduct and add the chemical
> to the dealers involved in the transfer.
> Basically like this:
> Dealer A transfers 40 gallons of chemical Z to Dealer B. Both Dealers had
> 60 gallons of chemical Z sprayed for the day.
> At the beginning of the day Dealer A had 120 gallons, Dealer B had 50.
> So, after all is said and done, Dealer A should have 20 gallons, Dealer B
> should have 30.
> I need a way to keep track of the transfer and the amount sprayed for each
> day.
> Any thoughts and suggestions would be much appreciated.
From: A.Finnegan on 17 Jun 2008 12:01
I was beginning to think this was going to take multiple transaction types.
The transfer ID is a very helpful idea. That definitely makes things a lot
clearer. In response to fred, I only need to know how much a dealer has
given me (i.e. sitting on the floor in my hangar.) Then I need to keep track
of how much of each dealer's chemicals I have, how much I sprayed that day,
and how much I transfered between dealers. Then after a couple of reports,
I'm finished. The amount of information I need to database is minimal. it is
more solving the transfer issue in as few steps as possible so the front-end
user can record additions, deductions and transfers to our chemical supply
quickly.
Thanks for both responses!

"Klatuu" wrote:

> I did this once a long time ago for a city's shared inventory system. For
> example, Parks and Recreation has 100 feet of pipe and Streets has 50 feet of
> pipe. Streets needs to install 80 feet of pipe. This takes 3 transactions.
> 1. Deduct 30 feet from Parks and Recreation
> Transaction Type Transfer Out.
> Transfer Number 30002 (to tie the in and out together for
> accounting/audit)
> 2. Add 30 feet to Streets
> Transaction Type Transfer In.
> Transfer Number 30002 (to tie the in and out together for
> accounting/audit)
> 3. Deduct 80 feet from Street
> Transaction Type Consumed
>
> So each transaction applies to a specific vendor. To do a transer takes two
> transactions, one for out and one for in. Each Transaction needs a type.
> Received, Consumed, Destroyed, Returned, Transfered Out, Transfered In, etc.
> When you do a transfer, you need a field to tie the two transactions
> together for accounting, audit, and tracking purposes.
>
> Although you may have 500 gallons of a product sitting on the floor, you
> should not carry that as one quantity in inventory. You carry the quantity
> in inventory by dealer. Your table structure should, however, allow you to
> be able to know the total inventory of the product. So you need something
> like
> ProductID
> DealerID
> QtyOnHand
>
> --
> Dave Hargis, Microsoft Access MVP
>
>
> "A.Finnegan" wrote:
>
> > I am attempting to create a database that will mainly handle transfers of
> > materials between dealers. This is an aerial application business, so
> > dealers bring us chemicals that we apply on crops. Dealers are responsible
> > for providing us with the correct amount of chemicals for the fields they
> > need sprayed. We can't always use their specific chemical. All of our 15 or
> > so dealers bring the same chemicals, so we often use one dealer's chemical on
> > another's field. I need to keep track of this debit/credit system, so I
> > always know who owes who what. I am having trouble implementing this idea
> > into Access so any transaction or transfer will deduct and add the chemical
> > to the dealers involved in the transfer.
> > Basically like this:
> > Dealer A transfers 40 gallons of chemical Z to Dealer B. Both Dealers had
> > 60 gallons of chemical Z sprayed for the day.
> > At the beginning of the day Dealer A had 120 gallons, Dealer B had 50.
> > So, after all is said and done, Dealer A should have 20 gallons, Dealer B
> > should have 30.
> > I need a way to keep track of the transfer and the amount sprayed for each
> > day.
> > Any thoughts and suggestions would be much appreciated.
From: Fred on 17 Jun 2008 13:38
If there were only a few chemicals (like 2 or 3) I would have suggested a
brute force method.....a transaction table with a field for each
dealer/chemical combo. Plus a field for "consumed" and maybe one more for
adjustments. And then each transaction would be a double entry, crediting
one column and debiting one column. A DB pro like Dave would cringe at
this structure, but it has the advantage that you could make a simple report
which totals the columns and gives you current inventory for everything and
everybody in one pass.

Dave's solution is more elegant from a DB design point, but, unless I missed
something, he didn't cover the hard part which is how to get the transaction
records to modify the inventory records.



"A.Finnegan" wrote:

> I was beginning to think this was going to take multiple transaction types.
> The transfer ID is a very helpful idea. That definitely makes things a lot
> clearer. In response to fred, I only need to know how much a dealer has
> given me (i.e. sitting on the floor in my hangar.) Then I need to keep track
> of how much of each dealer's chemicals I have, how much I sprayed that day,
> and how much I transfered between dealers. Then after a couple of reports,
> I'm finished. The amount of information I need to database is minimal. it is
> more solving the transfer issue in as few steps as possible so the front-end
> user can record additions, deductions and transfers to our chemical supply
> quickly.
> Thanks for both responses!
>
> "Klatuu" wrote:
>
> > I did this once a long time ago for a city's shared inventory system. For
> > example, Parks and Recreation has 100 feet of pipe and Streets has 50 feet of
> > pipe. Streets needs to install 80 feet of pipe. This takes 3 transactions.
> > 1. Deduct 30 feet from Parks and Recreation
> > Transaction Type Transfer Out.
> > Transfer Number 30002 (to tie the in and out together for
> > accounting/audit)
> > 2. Add 30 feet to Streets
> > Transaction Type Transfer In.
> > Transfer Number 30002 (to tie the in and out together for
> > accounting/audit)
> > 3. Deduct 80 feet from Street
> > Transaction Type Consumed
> >
> > So each transaction applies to a specific vendor. To do a transer takes two
> > transactions, one for out and one for in. Each Transaction needs a type.
> > Received, Consumed, Destroyed, Returned, Transfered Out, Transfered In, etc.
> > When you do a transfer, you need a field to tie the two transactions
> > together for accounting, audit, and tracking purposes.
> >
> > Although you may have 500 gallons of a product sitting on the floor, you
> > should not carry that as one quantity in inventory. You carry the quantity
> > in inventory by dealer. Your table structure should, however, allow you to
> > be able to know the total inventory of the product. So you need something
> > like
> > ProductID
> > DealerID
> > QtyOnHand
> >
> > --
> > Dave Hargis, Microsoft Access MVP
> >
> >
> > "A.Finnegan" wrote:
> >
> > > I am attempting to create a database that will mainly handle transfers of
> > > materials between dealers. This is an aerial application business, so
> > > dealers bring us chemicals that we apply on crops. Dealers are responsible
> > > for providing us with the correct amount of chemicals for the fields they
> > > need sprayed. We can't always use their specific chemical. All of our 15 or
> > > so dealers bring the same chemicals, so we often use one dealer's chemical on
> > > another's field. I need to keep track of this debit/credit system, so I
> > > always know who owes who what. I am having trouble implementing this idea
> > > into Access so any transaction or transfer will deduct and add the chemical
> > > to the dealers involved in the transfer.
> > > Basically like this:
> > > Dealer A transfers 40 gallons of chemical Z to Dealer B. Both Dealers had
> > > 60 gallons of chemical Z sprayed for the day.
> > > At the beginning of the day Dealer A had 120 gallons, Dealer B had 50.
> > > So, after all is said and done, Dealer A should have 20 gallons, Dealer B
> > > should have 30.
> > > I need a way to keep track of the transfer and the amount sprayed for each
> > > day.
> > > Any thoughts and suggestions would be much appreciated.
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