problems with calcs in Access

deb · External Since: Jul 08, 2004 Posts: 55

is there a general problem with doing calcs in Access?

there is a woman in the office here that is trying to derail the use of
Access for the database and she claims it has a lot of problems with
processing calculations correctly, she's spouting all kinds of heresay that
major companies have dumped it in favour of other programs that apparently
work better

i'm thinking this is a load of #$#$%

yes?
--
deb

John W. Vinson · External Since: Jan 29, 2004 Posts: 2502

On Wed, 4 Nov 2009 21:43:01 -0800, deb <deb DeleteThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>is there a general problem with doing calcs in Access?

No.

>there is a woman in the office here that is trying to derail the use of
>Access for the database and she claims it has a lot of problems with
>processing calculations correctly, she's spouting all kinds of heresay that
>major companies have dumped it in favour of other programs that apparently
>work better

Access is installed - and used - on more computers than any other database
software.

>i'm thinking this is a load of #$#$%

>yes?

Yes.

If your coworker cares to post some specifics, I'm sure they will be easily
refuted.
--

John W. Vinson [MVP]

Larry Linson · External Since: Jun 24, 2004 Posts: 1875

I can categorically state that Access does not have "a lot of problems with
processing calculations correctly".

Calculations have worked just fine for me in Access, in every version that
I've used from Access v. 1.0 through the current Access 2007. Nor have I
heard of any problems with calculations from beta testers of Access 2010.

Some individuals have had problems of various kinds with Access, but as you
know if you follow this newsgroup, that almost always it is the individual
who has the problem, not Access.

There is no groundswell of companies "dumping Access because it doesn't
process calculations correctly". Does she say just what database it is that
"works better" with which these major companies have allegedly replaced it?
(No? I thought not.)

As far as I know, every (or almost every) enterprise-level company around
the world that uses Microsoft platforms (and that is the vast majority) has
people who use Access.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Office Access MVP

"deb" <deb.TakeThisOut@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:99F77DED-802C-4032-A352-67FFF0BD973A@microsoft.com...
> is there a general problem with doing calcs in Access?
>
> there is a woman in the office here that is trying to derail the use of
> Access for the database and she claims it has a lot of problems with
> processing calculations correctly, she's spouting all kinds of heresay
> that
> major companies have dumped it in favour of other programs that apparently
> work better
>
> i'm thinking this is a load of #$#$%
>
> yes?
> --
> deb

Gina Whipp · External Since: Sep 25, 2003 Posts: 426

Deb,

First time I heard Access has a problem with calculations. Now granted it
does not Round the say way Excel does but there are numerous, let me say
that again, NUMEROUS fixes for that. However, I created a Property
Appraisal database which amounts to a big calculator and it calculates just
fine. Now that being said, without knowing what type of database you want
to create we can't tell you if Access is the correct tool for the job.

And let's be nice to the woman in the office, she is probably just a little
out of her comfort zone when it comes to Access and would feel better if the
application was something that she *knew*.

--
Gina Whipp

"I feel I have been denied critical, need to know, information!" - Tremors
II

http://www.regina-whipp.com/index_files/TipList.htm

"deb" <deb.DeleteThis@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:99F77DED-802C-4032-A352-67FFF0BD973A@microsoft.com...
> is there a general problem with doing calcs in Access?
>
> there is a woman in the office here that is trying to derail the use of
> Access for the database and she claims it has a lot of problems with
> processing calculations correctly, she's spouting all kinds of heresay
> that
> major companies have dumped it in favour of other programs that apparently
> work better
>
> i'm thinking this is a load of #$#$%
>
> yes?
> --
> deb

Peter Hibbs · External Since: Apr 21, 2006 Posts: 181

Perhaps she's thinking of this :-
http://www.fmsinc.com/tpapers/math/index.html
(although this is not specifically for Access).

Peter Hibbs.

On Wed, 4 Nov 2009 21:43:01 -0800, deb <deb.RemoveThis@discussions.microsoft.com>
wrote:

>is there a general problem with doing calcs in Access?
>
>there is a woman in the office here that is trying to derail the use of
>Access for the database and she claims it has a lot of problems with
>processing calculations correctly, she's spouting all kinds of heresay that
>major companies have dumped it in favour of other programs that apparently
>work better
>
>i'm thinking this is a load of #$#$%
>
>yes?

Mr. B · External Since: Apr 25, 2009 Posts: 3

There are no specific issues with calculations in Access that I am aware of
and I have been developing database applications which have been used by some
very large companies. Please consider that if there were the kinds of issues
that you state that this other person is claiming, this would be of such a
major issue that the product would not have survived and qrown as it has for
years.

There are Access users and developers using this product everyday. Some in
"mom and pop" shops and may otheres in very large corporations. If these
types of claims had any foundation it would certainly be a huge topic of
conversation.

It is evident that she does not have a clue what she is talking about. It
is also plain that she does not know anything about Access.

Mr. B
http://www.askdoctoraccess.com/
Doctor Access Downloads Page:
http://www.askdoctoraccess.com/DownloadPage.htm

"deb" wrote:

> is there a general problem with doing calcs in Access?
>
> there is a woman in the office here that is trying to derail the use of
> Access for the database and she claims it has a lot of problems with
> processing calculations correctly, she's spouting all kinds of heresay that
> major companies have dumped it in favour of other programs that apparently
> work better
>
> i'm thinking this is a load of #$#$%
>
> yes?
> --
> deb

KenSheridan via AccessMon · External Since: May 16, 2009 Posts: 68

There are always 'problems' with calculations. You might like to suggest she
gets a copy of 'How Computers Do Math', a snip at 30 USD from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471732788

Taking the simplest possible example try dividing 1 by 3. You simply cannot
express this as an 'accurate' result in decimal notation, you just get
infinitely recurring 3s. So if you are offering a one third discount on an
article costing 10 USD , GBP or any other decimal currency you'll never do
this 100 percent 'accurately'. People often confuse precision and accuracy,
however. They are not the same thing. 1/3 expressed as 1.3333 is more
precise that 1.33, not more accurate (in fact its questionable whether there
is any such thing as relative accuracy). Its just that the former has been
rounded to 4 decimal places, the latter to 2. Access users 'banker's
rounding' or 'round-half-even', but there are many different rounding
algorithms. You'll find a good summary at:

http://www.pldesignline.com/howto/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=175801189

The area where people probably complain most of Access's lack of 'accuracy'
is with currency calculations, because the results from Access don't agree
with their paper calculations. In fact its usually Access which is the more
accurate, and their paper calculations less so. This is because the paper
calculations can produce 'cumulative rounding errors'; not really 'errors'
but reductions in precision. 10/3 * 3 = 10 obviously. But if we first round
10/3 to 3.33 and then multiply that by 3 the result is 9.99. The cumulative
rounding 'error' is obvious here as we know the result we are expecting, but
if the end result is less obvious, as it normally will be in the real world,
then someone doing a paper calculation where the result of each step is in
dollars and cents, pounds and pence before inputting that into the next stage
in the calculation will think the computed result is 'wrong' because it
differs from their paper result. With currency Access suppresses these types
of rounding calculations by storing currency data type values to a precision
of 4 decimal places. You can see this with our example of 10/3 by entering
the following in the debug window:

? 10/3
3.33333333333333
? CCur(10/3)
3.3333
? Format(10/3,"Currency")
£3.33
? 10/3*3
10
? CCur(10/3)*3
9.9999
? Format(CCur(10/3)*3,"Currency")
£10.00
? Format(CCur((10/3)*3),"Currency")
£10.00

Of the last two, while they give the same result, the second is better as the
expression ((10/3)*3)) is evaluated first by being parenthesised.

Any one who thinks 100 percent accuracy is universally achievable simply does
not understand the nature of reality. We live in a universe of
approximations. Access is fine for what its designed for. In the large
organization in which I worked we wouldn't have dreamt of using Access for
our payroll system for instance, or our major modelling applications which
required massive number crunching, but it was fine for many small to medium
workgroup applications. But it is just a tool, remember, and like all tools
can be used well or badly.

Ken Sheridan
Stafford, England

deb wrote:
>is there a general problem with doing calcs in Access?
>
>there is a woman in the office here that is trying to derail the use of
>Access for the database and she claims it has a lot of problems with
>processing calculations correctly, she's spouting all kinds of heresay that
>major companies have dumped it in favour of other programs that apparently
>work better
>
>i'm thinking this is a load of #$#$%
>
>yes?

--
Message posted via AccessMonster.com
http://www.accessmonster.com/Uwe/Forums.aspx/access/200911/1

Klatuu · External Since: Jun 06, 2007 Posts: 7

Sounds like someone has an angenda to promote but not much knowledge about
computers or database applications.

"deb" <deb.DeleteThis@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:99F77DED-802C-4032-A352-67FFF0BD973A@microsoft.com...
> is there a general problem with doing calcs in Access?
>
> there is a woman in the office here that is trying to derail the use of
> Access for the database and she claims it has a lot of problems with
> processing calculations correctly, she's spouting all kinds of heresay
> that
> major companies have dumped it in favour of other programs that apparently
> work better
>
> i'm thinking this is a load of #$#$%
>
> yes?
> --
> deb

deb · External Since: Jul 08, 2004 Posts: 55

thanks, thats exactly what i wanted to hear and i'll show your response to my
manager.

i think the problem mainly is that she doesnt want to learn Access because
she currently has all the databases in excel and she's happy with that - its
going to take some convincing to get her to change, i'm actually having
trouble with her handing me the existing data to convert to accesss

luckily i have the owner of the business fully in favour of access
--
deb

"Mr. B" wrote:

> There are no specific issues with calculations in Access that I am aware of
> and I have been developing database applications which have been used by some
> very large companies. Please consider that if there were the kinds of issues
> that you state that this other person is claiming, this would be of such a
> major issue that the product would not have survived and qrown as it has for
> years.
>
> There are Access users and developers using this product everyday. Some in
> "mom and pop" shops and may otheres in very large corporations. If these
> types of claims had any foundation it would certainly be a huge topic of
> conversation.
>
> It is evident that she does not have a clue what she is talking about. It
> is also plain that she does not know anything about Access.
>
> Mr. B
> http://www.askdoctoraccess.com/
> Doctor Access Downloads Page:
> http://www.askdoctoraccess.com/DownloadPage.htm
>
>
> "deb" wrote:
>
> > is there a general problem with doing calcs in Access?
> >
> > there is a woman in the office here that is trying to derail the use of
> > Access for the database and she claims it has a lot of problems with
> > processing calculations correctly, she's spouting all kinds of heresay that
> > major companies have dumped it in favour of other programs that apparently
> > work better
> >
> > i'm thinking this is a load of #$#$%
> >
> > yes?
> > --
> > deb

KARL DEWEY · External Since: Mar 03, 2006 Posts: 1616

Access does have some 'quirks' or rules that people new to it might not know
such as math on fields that may have nulls.
Or if you try to add text fields -- [Field1] + [Field2] containing 25 and 57
you will get 2557 as it concatenates the fields.

--
Build a little, test a little.

"deb" wrote:

> thanks, thats exactly what i wanted to hear and i'll show your response to my
> manager.
>
> i think the problem mainly is that she doesnt want to learn Access because
> she currently has all the databases in excel and she's happy with that - its
> going to take some convincing to get her to change, i'm actually having
> trouble with her handing me the existing data to convert to accesss
>
> luckily i have the owner of the business fully in favour of access
> --
> deb
>
>
> "Mr. B" wrote:
>
> > There are no specific issues with calculations in Access that I am aware of
> > and I have been developing database applications which have been used by some
> > very large companies. Please consider that if there were the kinds of issues
> > that you state that this other person is claiming, this would be of such a
> > major issue that the product would not have survived and qrown as it has for
> > years.
> >
> > There are Access users and developers using this product everyday. Some in
> > "mom and pop" shops and may otheres in very large corporations. If these
> > types of claims had any foundation it would certainly be a huge topic of
> > conversation.
> >
> > It is evident that she does not have a clue what she is talking about. It
> > is also plain that she does not know anything about Access.
> >
> > Mr. B
> > http://www.askdoctoraccess.com/
> > Doctor Access Downloads Page:
> > http://www.askdoctoraccess.com/DownloadPage.htm
> >
> >
> > "deb" wrote:
> >
> > > is there a general problem with doing calcs in Access?
> > >
> > > there is a woman in the office here that is trying to derail the use of
> > > Access for the database and she claims it has a lot of problems with
> > > processing calculations correctly, she's spouting all kinds of heresay that
> > > major companies have dumped it in favour of other programs that apparently
> > > work better
> > >
> > > i'm thinking this is a load of #$#$%
> > >
> > > yes?
> > > --
> > > deb

David W. Fenton · External Since: Dec 25, 2005 Posts: 975

=?Utf-8?B?ZGVi?= <deb DeleteThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
news:99F77DED-802C-4032-A352-67FFF0BD973A@microsoft.com:

> is there a general problem with doing calcs in Access?
>
> there is a woman in the office here that is trying to derail the
> use of Access for the database and she claims it has a lot of
> problems with processing calculations correctly, she's spouting
> all kinds of heresay that major companies have dumped it in favour
> of other programs that apparently work better
>
> i'm thinking this is a load of #$#$%

Your thinking is correct.

Have her cite her sources. She won't have any, or the sources she
cite won't be saying what she believes them to be saying.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

deb · External Since: Jul 08, 2004 Posts: 55

ive already argued that the issue is people not knowing how to use access
rather than access being unstable

she's just an idiot
--
deb

"KARL DEWEY" wrote:

> Access does have some 'quirks' or rules that people new to it might not know
> such as math on fields that may have nulls.
> Or if you try to add text fields -- [Field1] + [Field2] containing 25 and 57
> you will get 2557 as it concatenates the fields.
>
> --
> Build a little, test a little.
>
>
> "deb" wrote:
>
> > thanks, thats exactly what i wanted to hear and i'll show your response to my
> > manager.
> >
> > i think the problem mainly is that she doesnt want to learn Access because
> > she currently has all the databases in excel and she's happy with that - its
> > going to take some convincing to get her to change, i'm actually having
> > trouble with her handing me the existing data to convert to accesss
> >
> > luckily i have the owner of the business fully in favour of access
> > --
> > deb
> >
> >
> > "Mr. B" wrote:
> >
> > > There are no specific issues with calculations in Access that I am aware of
> > > and I have been developing database applications which have been used by some
> > > very large companies. Please consider that if there were the kinds of issues
> > > that you state that this other person is claiming, this would be of such a
> > > major issue that the product would not have survived and qrown as it has for
> > > years.
> > >
> > > There are Access users and developers using this product everyday. Some in
> > > "mom and pop" shops and may otheres in very large corporations. If these
> > > types of claims had any foundation it would certainly be a huge topic of
> > > conversation.
> > >
> > > It is evident that she does not have a clue what she is talking about. It
> > > is also plain that she does not know anything about Access.
> > >
> > > Mr. B
> > > http://www.askdoctoraccess.com/
> > > Doctor Access Downloads Page:
> > > http://www.askdoctoraccess.com/DownloadPage.htm
> > >
> > >
> > > "deb" wrote:
> > >
> > > > is there a general problem with doing calcs in Access?
> > > >
> > > > there is a woman in the office here that is trying to derail the use of
> > > > Access for the database and she claims it has a lot of problems with
> > > > processing calculations correctly, she's spouting all kinds of heresay that
> > > > major companies have dumped it in favour of other programs that apparently
> > > > work better
> > > >
> > > > i'm thinking this is a load of #$#$%
> > > >
> > > > yes?
> > > > --
> > > > deb

gg · External Since: Nov 06, 2009 Posts: 1

â€â€ÙƒØªØ¨ "deb" <deb.DeleteThis@discussions.microsoft.com> ÙÙŠ Ø±Ø³Ø§Ù„Ø©
news:96C828DC-C91C-42D6-92A9-6C04F58D2A38@microsoft.com...
> thanks, thats exactly what i wanted to hear and i'll show your response to
> my
> manager.
>
> i think the problem mainly is that she doesnt want to learn Access because
> she currently has all the databases in excel and she's happy with that -
> its
> going to take some convincing to get her to change, i'm actually having
> trouble with her handing me the existing data to convert to accesss
>
> luckily i have the owner of the business fully in favour of access
> --
> deb
>
>
> "Mr. B" wrote:
>
>> There are no specific issues with calculations in Access that I am aware
>> of
>> and I have been developing database applications which have been used by
>> some
>> very large companies. Please consider that if there were the kinds of
>> issues
>> that you state that this other person is claiming, this would be of such
>> a
>> major issue that the product would not have survived and qrown as it has
>> for
>> years.
>>
>> There are Access users and developers using this product everyday. Some
>> in
>> "mom and pop" shops and may otheres in very large corporations. If these
>> types of claims had any foundation it would certainly be a huge topic of
>> conversation.
>>
>> It is evident that she does not have a clue what she is talking about.
>> It
>> is also plain that she does not know anything about Access.
>>
>> Mr. B
>> http://www.askdoctoraccess.com/
>> Doctor Access Downloads Page:
>> http://www.askdoctoraccess.com/DownloadPage.htm
>>
>>
>> "deb" wrote:
>>
>> > is there a general problem with doing calcs in Access?
>> >
>> > there is a woman in the office here that is trying to derail the use of
>> > Access for the database and she claims it has a lot of problems with
>> > processing calculations correctly, she's spouting all kinds of heresay
>> > that
>> > major companies have dumped it in favour of other programs that
>> > apparently
>> > work better
>> >
>> > i'm thinking this is a load of #$#$%
>> >
>> > yes?
>> > --
>> > deb