Making a database might seem like a pretty big job, but taking the time to design one properly will save a lot of time down the road. You are exposed to databases everyday use them all the time (probably without knowing it), are likely in several yourself!

 The easiest method of identifying yourself in day to day life is a simple handshake and saying “Hello, my name is…” But you can’t really shake hands with a computer. Using your name, even your full name, isn’t a very good option either because there may be hundreds of people out there with exactly the same name as you. Therefore, you must be assigned some unique identifier, the most recognizable being your Social Security Number or Social Insurance Number (SIN). No one else in the database has the same SIN as you.

This practice holds true for databases, too. Every row in a table has at least one field that is unique from every other record. That field is usually a number, and the unique field is referred to as the primary key. It is not imperative to have a primary key, but it makes the design of the database much easier and eliminates the possibility of duplicate data (which does nothing but confuse the issue!). It also allows a database program (in most cases) to search faster and more efficiently. Therefore, any tables that we create in this manual will have a primary key.

So let’s review what we know about databases: they are made up of tables, and in each table are several records (or rows) of data. Every record is made up of one or more fields, and every record in a table is different from every other record because of the unique primary key.

For the rest of this manual, let’s pretend that you are Bugs Rabbit, CEO of an upstart animation company, Warner Cousins. You want to use Access to monitor and control the expenses made by you and your employees. Let’s make a database!