Why Access

Microsoft Access is the most popular desktop database application used by companies around the world.

Great as a Local Database

Microsoft Access is a great tool for managing locally-stored data, either within a local network or on the same computer. While it can be shared over the internet, performance lags tremendously, and is not the recommended solution in that case. Microsoft Access could have alternative back-ends, including Microsoft SharePoint, and SQL Server; in these cases, reliability of the software greatly depends on network connectivity.

Quick to Set Up

If you need to have your database created yesterday, this may be the perfect solution for you. Microsoft Access has a fairly quick development life-cycle, and you can rapidly get up and running with your data collection and analysis, when compared to other alternatives.

Great Built-in Querying and Reporting Functionality

Microsoft Access has advanced set of querying tools to aid in data analysis. Reports templates can be created for automated reporting and document/letter generation.

Integration with Existing Microsoft Tools

Being a Microsoft Product, Access integrates well with other Microsoft applications, such as Word, Excel, or outlook. Whether you need data exported as Word document, an Excel workbook, or attached as PDF into an auto-generated Outlook email, you will be able to do it easily with Microsoft Access.

Affordable

Since Microsoft Access is part of Microsoft Office suite, as well as available as a standalone. It is readily available and cheap to obtain. You may already have it installed on your computer, and are ready to go! Even if you do not have Microsoft Access, there is a free runtime version of Access available from Microsoft which will allow you to use an Access database. There is nothing more affordable than free :)

Popular

Microsoft Access is the most widely-used desktop database system in the world. This means that there is a ton of support available for it. It is backed by the biggest software corporation in the world, namely, Microsoft.

Perfect for Small Groups

Microsoft Access can be used concurrently by several users, but performs best when the number active users are less than 15; above that, you would experience certain lags. Most clients would not likely have more than 15 concurrent users at any point in time, even if the total number of users greatly exceeds 15.