Access database replacement · Wholesale & distribution · UK
Your stock and pricing sit in an Access file. I rebuild it as a browser-based web app, from £1,950 with no per-seat fees, in about two weeks.
It holds products, stock levels, customer price bands and orders. It was built years ago by somebody who has since left. It sits on the warehouse PC, it locks up when the office and the warehouse try to update it at once, and the price a rep quotes on the road is never quite the one in the file. I rebuild it as a web application that runs in a browser, on the warehouse PC, on a laptop in the office or on a phone at goods-in.
Send me what you are running now and I will tell you in writing what it would take to replace it, free.
Symptoms
The database has been placed in a state by user 'ADMIN' on machine 'WAREHOUSE-PC' that prevents it from being opened or locked.
Someone left the stock screen open on the warehouse PC. Nobody in the office can update a price until it is closed.
The Microsoft Access database engine stopped the process because you and another user are attempting to change the same data at the same time.
A rep updated a customer's price band from a laptop at the same moment the office adjusted stock. One of those changes is now gone.
Unrecognized database format 'S:\Stock\pricing_2024.accdb'
The file corrupted on the network share overnight. You are now working out how old last night's backup is, with orders due out today.
Microsoft Access has stopped working
Office updated overnight. The stock file that ran fine on Friday will not open on Monday morning, with a delivery van waiting to be loaded.
Why it happens
Access was designed for one person at a desk. A shared .accdb file on a network drive being updated from the warehouse floor and the office phone at the same time is several people writing into one file at once. That is not a fault to be patched. It is the design working as intended, in a setting it was never intended for.
A price band gets typed over a price band. There is no history of what a customer was actually quoted last month, only what the field says today. When a customer queries an invoice, proving what they agreed to becomes a matter of memory rather than a stored fact.
Stock counts sit in the file, but nothing flags a line running low until somebody walks the warehouse and looks. A threshold that could be checked automatically is instead checked by whoever remembers to, which is fine until the week they do not.
Ten years of somebody adding a column when a customer asked for an exception. The forms stopped matching the tables a long while back. The person who understood why has left.
The replacement
Your product structure, not a generic one. These are the parts most wholesale builds end up with. Yours is scoped from what you actually stock and sell.
Pricing
Mainstream stock control and ERP systems are typically priced per user, per month, sometimes with a setup fee on top. That model is fine while it is one or two people at a terminal. It becomes a climbing annual bill the moment you add warehouse staff or a second site. It is the reason a lot of small distributors stay on the Access file long after it stopped being safe.
This is a one-off build. You pay for the software once, you own it and adding a fifth member of staff or a second warehouse costs the same as adding the first: nothing. There is optional support afterwards at £75 a month or £750 a year. That figure does not change with headcount or site count either.
Full breakdown, including the routes I think are cheaper than me in some cases, is on the cost page. If what you are actually running is a spreadsheet rather than an Access file, the same problem and roughly the same fix apply, covered on the spreadsheet replacement page.
Your data
They come with you. I work from a copy of your file, pull the tables out and bring them across as they are. Your existing product catalogue, stock levels and price history stay intact rather than starting again on an empty system, which matters when the value of the database is years of who pays what.
Every screen exports back out to a spreadsheet, so your accountant, your bookkeeper or whoever raises purchase orders can have the numbers in a file they can open without asking me for anything. Your data never stops being yours in a format you control.
If you ever want to leave, you take the lot. The application files and a full export of your data are yours free on request, whenever you ask.
How it works
The Access file, or screenshots of the forms if you would rather not send the data. Tell me what goes wrong most often.
Written. What it would become, what it would cost, how long it would take. If a standard product would serve you better, it says that instead.
Around two weeks. You see it working part way through, not at the end, so a wrong assumption gets caught early.
Your stock and pricing are loaded before you go live. Most people run both for a week, then quietly stop opening the old one.
Price
Starting priceFrom £1,950
£1,950 covers one system rebuilt properly. A stock and pricing database at the size a small distributor runs sits in that bracket. Barcode scanning, a customer-facing order portal or anything that has to talk to your accounts package is more work, so it costs more. The blueprint tells you that before you commit rather than halfway through.
I am a sole trader, so there is no VAT to add and no per-user licence behind it. What there is not, is a team. I take a few of these at a time and I will tell you early if yours is not a good fit for me.
Questions
No. An ERP is built for the average distributor and you fit yourself around it, usually with a licence cost per user. This is built around your own product structure, your own price bands and your own way of taking an order. If a standard package would genuinely serve you better and cheaper, I will say so in the blueprint rather than take the job.
No. The price covers the build, not the number of people using it or the number of sites. Adding a second warehouse or a fifth member of staff costs nothing extra. Optional support afterwards is £75 a month or £750 a year, and that figure does not change with headcount or site count.
Yes. It is usually the main reason the Access version stopped being trustworthy. Customer-specific price bands, discount tiers and minimum order quantities can be held as proper structured fields rather than a column added for each new customer, so the price shown is the price agreed.
It can be built in. It is not part of the starting price, since it depends on the scanner hardware you already have. Tell me in your first email if picking or goods-in need to work with a scanner and the blueprint will price it separately.
No. Product count is rarely the problem. Access struggles with several people writing stock and price changes to one file over a network long before it struggles with row counts.
Sometimes. If that is the cheaper answer I will say so in the blueprint. Most of these failures are structural though. A file being written to over a network by several people is not a fault to be patched. Repairing it buys you time rather than fixing the cause.
No to both. It is hosted and it runs in a browser. If your staff can open a website, they can use it.
Next step
Email me the Access file, or just describe what it does and what keeps going wrong. You get a written answer covering what it would become, what it would cost and how long it would take. No call required. Nothing to sign.
Joe Thorp · ToolWright · Suite 708, 80A Ruskin Ave, Welling, DA16 3QQ
Related