Tables are fundamental to your Access Database; all the data contain within your database will be stored in one or more tables.

A table consists of a number of rows and columns, the rows are known as records. Each record in a table corresponds to an entity i.e. in a customer database each record (row) in the customer table would hold information about a customer.

The columns, known as fields, store the data about the given entity in the record. i.e. in a database keeping track of personnel, the personnel table may contain fields such as First Name, Surname, DOB etc...

The two main difference between an Access Database table and an Excel spreadsheet are that fields within the table are of a fixed type i.e. a persons date of birth would be a field of type 'date' and the field will only accept a date entry; Restricting field data types gives Access a lot more control of what users input into the database, reducing typing errors and making calculations more robust. Also unlike in Excel, fields should not contain values that can be calculated from other data i.e. if your table contains a persons date of birth then do not store their age in the table as this can be calculated later in a query or report.

Once you start entering data into the database tables you will need to make good use of this data, instead of just viewing all the data in a particular table. A query allows you to setup different views of the data in the database. i.e. in a sales database you may require a list of all produces sold in the last month or year.

A query will also allow you to make calculations on the data stored within your database tables. i.e. again in a sales database you can setup a query to list the total value of sales per month or per salesman.

A query can also be used to manipulate data in the tables, you may require to mark all products for a specific supplier as discontinued.

Once your queries are setup they can be viewed at the click of a button giving you bang up to date information and calculations based on the data in the tables.

Forms are used within Microsoft Access to create user friendly screens for data entry, data viewing or report filtering.

As the developer of an Access database 'forcing' your database users to enter and manipulate data via a form has a number of advantages. Forms are a user friendly way of representing the data within a familiar windows style interface (buttons, dropdowns, tick boxes etc...).

Forms can be built to contain validation of user input thus eliminating incorrect data entry by not allowing users to save data until all required information is inputted; data entry can also be made simpler and quick by the use of list and dropdowns, for example allowing users to select a product from a list instead of having to type the product name in time and time again.

Reports are a user/printer friendly way of displaying data. A report can be based on a table or a query.

Reports can be used to view data about a specific entity in the database i.e. the number of products sold by a specific salesman in a give month or year with report totals.

A report can be easily printed or email. Your reports can also be filtered using a form, thus allowing the same report to be used for various date ranges, sales people etc...

Visual Basic for Applications (VBa) is a programming language which can be used to control all aspects of your database's operation; it will also let you control other applications such as Excel, Word, Outlook from within your database, allowing you to email data, export information into Excel or automatically create letters in Word, all using data from within your database.

You can use VBa within your forms to control the use of the form. VBa will sit behind buttons on the form to allow users to save their data, close the form etc... It can also be used to change the data that is show in dropdown boxes or show and hide different controls on the form depending on user input. The controls put in place using VBa help to improve validation and guide user input.