Excel or Access?

21 July, 2008

Choosing the best software solution

Here at Plum Solutions we use Excel in our training courses, as that is most
appropriate for the kind of business case demonstration model the students build
during the course. It is worth considering, however, that many solutions would be
better built in Access so take a moment to contemplate your choice of software
before designing a solution.

Advantages of MS Access

• It can handle much larger amounts of data. Excel can handle 65,000 rows, but
  Access’ capability is much larger. It has 2GB memory storage whereas Excel has
  only 80MB before it crashes
• Data is only stored once in Access, making it work more efficiently
• Data can be entered in Access by more than one user at a time
• Access is a good data cruncher to manipulate large amounts of data
• Because Access is less flexible, it is a harder for the user to make a mistake
• Access has user forms which are very useful and an easy way for users to enter data

Advantages of MS Excel

• Excel is much more flexible and calculations are much easier to perform
• It is generally faster to build a solution in Excel than in Access
• It is quicker and easier to train staff on Excel and there is wider knowledge of Excel
• Users say that Excel is a lot more intuitive
• It’s very easy to create flexible reports and charts in Excel

In summary, it depends on the solution you require. A database or CRM type data lends itself
very well to Access, whereas something which requires complex calculations is only possible
in Excel.

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