Pay for a Access Programmer

[mvester]

As far a starting out as a whatever kind of developer, I started by volunteering. I wrote a database application for a swimming club. The applications tracked the times of swimmer's at their swim meets.

I got my first paying job by going to the interview with a copy of what I had done. The interview lasted for more than 2 hours and I was hired on the spot. Keep in mind that I had no education in the computer field. My new boss was impressed with my "just the the job done" attitiude. I was hired to build a payroll system for a pressure vessel manufacturing company.

The project went very well and I used the experience that I gained to approach other companies. Bottom line is that volunteering was my foot in the door.

 

[Len Boorman]

Start off with the acceptance that in the eyes of amanagement everybody is overpaid except themselves. May not be totally true but is not a bad place to start.

Me, I am underpaid, No doubts about it. Okay thats my view.

In short if I feel that I am right then I look for another position. Not easy these days I know.

Be prepared if you find another position and you current company decides to up their offer what are you going to do.

Myself, never accepted an uprated offer from current company.

You are worth what somebody will pay you. Hard but basically that is fact.

Experience and qualifications all play a part. Great qualification and no experience is a problem as is the reverse. I have always tried to build both at teh same time.

Go on all the courses you can persuade your employer to pay for. Pick up additional courses from evening study or whatever other method you can find/afford. Try to spread the knowledge/experience but do not get too thin.

I come from Engineering so Database skills in a company that has engineering connections is a good balance. I understand nuts, bolts, BOM's, processing, costing and many other aspects.
I have worked in
Electrical Engineering, Aeronautical Engineering, Automotive Engineering, HVAC,

So you can see how experience both in the practical field and Database field go together.

Its a tough world and self determination is the key factor.

Good luck and keep moving forward

L

 

[KenHigg]

IMHO the acid test is getting some stuff out there in production which can be done by giving away some of your work. Do a couple smaller projects for friends and work through the issues. After this you'll have the confidence to tackle paying gigs, and a small portfolio as well...

 

[Mike375]

In my opinion Access is perfect for the self employed. BUT...being a salesman comes first.

Salesmen expose a problem and provide a solution. Hourly rates are not relevant.

I decided last September to give the Access thing a go and it has been very remunerating.

But the money is not in making full data bases. I now have two salesmen working for me.

And by the way, I would not be able to get a job as an Access programmer. But the thing is, when you cold call you turn up work that is suitable for you. I don't need the wide knowledge blokes Like Bob and the others have. A real good money earner is knocking over Excel stuff. Also, file management and especially Access to Word. File management is real good because you can save the man money. He no longer needs the girl that has done the Word and Windows 2 day course and can now get the assistant he really wants.

If you know how the business works you will get the deal over someone who knows 20 times as much about programming but does not know the bloke's business. You only need to know enough to make it.

The prospect/client is only interested in what works. He does not care whether you have used SQL, macros or VBA.

Last Saturday myself and a mate of mine went door knocking in a suburb for about 2 hours in the morning. He did insurance on one side of the streets and I did the computer stuff on the other side. In the afternoon I made $500, which was knocking over Excel stuff and I also made two appointments for during the week, one of which I had today, but it is a no goer and tomorrow is the other appointment. My mate doing the insurance gained three appointments. That was from just Saturday morning.

On Tuesday and today I did 4 hours of cold calling on the phone and made 5 appointments for next week. (now late Wednesday night in Australia)

In short, Access is one of the best money makers I have seen.

Remember.....there are problems.....and then solutions.

 

[gemma-the-husky]

interesting points mike, and i'm sure you are right!

 

[DCrake]

I posted a similar profile in the AWP section, but for all others, I have been programming since the middle 80's using dBase II and SuperCalc. I then did a 2 year course on Business and Finance and during this time I wrote a couple of apps, somewhat limited by the caperbilities of the software. Then I got a job working for the local NHS hospital where I remained for 9 years. In this time I computerised a majority of manual systems. The NHS being what they are would not pay me enough and as such I landed a job as a Software Developments Manager for a local software house who charged me out at an extortunate rate. Five years later I was made redundant (the company has since folded - not my doing) So I decided to set up my own business. However I knew from experience that companies in my area could not afford those rates, so my business strategy was to target small top medium sized businesses with small to medium sized budgets. Basically firefighing existings in house issues up to providing full turnkey systems.

My rates are a third of what I was being charged out at. Its better to have a lot of small jobs than spending time searching for the one big job.

With regard to the latter last July I secured a 2 ½ day contract with a company lasting till April 2010. Access and Visual Basic are my main fortes but I provide seamless automation between Access/VB and Excel/Word/Outlook.

I have never looked back, and I wonder why I did not do it earlier in life.

David

 

[Mike375]

Access and Visual Basic are my main fortes but I provide seamless automation between Access/VB and Excel/Word/Outlook.

That is the nuts and bolts. I have made some good money just on having a Word doc's contents and format go in the body of the email and expecially with the Word doc having a background texture/colour.

But I need to step my knowledge up so as to be more competent with Access/Outlook and particularly Access/Excel.

 

[DCrake]

Mike

Here is a link to a MS article on automation between Access and Excel. I have found this very useful, especially using the Copyfromrecordset option.

Alot of the time people want to shove data into Excel and format the spreadsheet, maybe with column headings and font changes. I tend to use an existing template, Copy that to a working xls and insert the data into that copy and save as whatever. This preserves the template and when opened is formatted correctly.

Access to Excel Automation

 

[Mike375]

Thanks for that link David.

I do a few for myself where I have Access open Excel and put data in specific cells and the format/formulas in Excel are left alone. I mainly do this because of bold/coloured typing etc in the xls file and it is easy to email it plus what the person gets is "live"

But am not familiar enough with the Access/Excel to unleash it on someone else but that will come with time.

 

[duluter]

I have thought about this issue a lot lately.

On the one hand, you have added value to your company by reducing inefficient work practices. On the other hand, from the company's perspective, they'll be paying you ~$50,000 per year for this work. Have the tools you developed saved the company $50,000 per year (I'm not saying you haven't, just asking)?

I always run into this annoying little fact when I want to implement a cool VBA macro that could speed up work practices where I work. But, doing the math, I quickly realize that if I spend a week writing a program, it will take the company a long, long time recouping that cost if the program only saves users a few minutes each time they use it.

I'm rooting for you, Djblois, but I can begrudgingly understand the company's position also.


Duluter

 

[Alisa]

I get paid more than that and I live in a cheaper state. I think what it comes down to is your responsibility within the organization, not what you can do with Access or other programs per se. It sounds like your position is sort of an ancillary support position, not something that is integral to the mission of the company. From that perspective, they probably are overpaying you. If what you were doing was critical to the success of the company, it would be a different story.

 

[Mike375]

I have thought about this issue a lot lately.

On the one hand, you have added value to your company by reducing inefficient work practices. On the other hand, from the company's perspective, they'll be paying you ~$50,000 per year for this work. Have the tools you developed saved the company $50,000 per year (I'm not saying you haven't, just asking)?

Duluter

This a key point and it also illustrates why the money with Access comes from self employment. When you are self employed you are not looking for $50,000 from one company every year but $500, $1000, $1500 or whatever from lots of companies. In these cases what you are doing can have quite dramatic and also instant results. These small jobs also move you away from an hourly rate to a "fee for service"

For those of you who would be wary about taking up being self employed have you thought about trying to get some work by using Saturdays to canvass for work. Saturday mornings can be great for calling on businesses and after lunch on Saturday is good for door knocking on homes. Once you know what you are doing one days canvassing will generate enough in fees to probably equal what you earn at work for the full week.

To get good "fee for service" business you need to specialise and have some ready to go things. Once you specialise you then automatically eliminate businesses that won't suit what you do. For example, I have made a speciality of Access to Word. Thus the prospect I want is a business whereby they know each customer's name and address etc. People such as tradesman and so on. On the other hand the retail type business or shop is generally no good to me since they would be lucky to even know the name of 1% of their customers.

Specialising in a few things also greatly helps sales results. It has been proven time and time again that the best sales results come when a salesman has a specific product to sell as opposed to diluted general approach.

I think Bob Larson mentioned earlier in the thread that the company he works for charges $150 per hour for work that he does and he gets paid $27.50 per hour. That is big gap but the gap is available to the developer if he finds, read sells, to get his own customer.

 

[DCrake]

Let me give you an instant and also a reason why I left the NHS in the UK. I was asked by the finance director a question "If we wanted to give the nursing staff (approx 3000) as 5% pay rise this year who much would it cost us?" Now each nurse can be on a different grade of pay each pay scale andthere was so many increment points, the next increment point is automatically awarded on the aniversary of their employment. It meant that moving up one point can move themf rom one NI bracket to another, their enhancements value may change, etc, etc, etc. I then wrote a program (in dBase III+) that sucked in the payroll details from a text file for all the nurses and applied the necessary formulae and what if's and applied the desired percentage. it calculated the total cost, broken down by cost centre and producd the print out. This then gave them a botton line figure. In total it took about 20 mins to number crunch and print the results. Not bad if you think that it took one person from technical accounts 10 mins for one person. This program saved them close to 250,000 GPB. Now when I asked for a rise they said no.

According to my job spec if I do the things I'm asked to do, which is within my caperbilities it does not matter if I am a whizz kid I have done the job. This is why I was so dissalusioned by the NHS and left.

What is called the "Opportunity cost" - the savings made based on the outcome against what we have now was the time taken to manually calculate each of the 3000 nurses was vast. However did I get any extra? did I F**k.

That program could be run over and over again simply by entering a different % increase and after 20 mins the answer was there.

The bottom line is make sure the end result of what you are doing justifies the initial cost of the project.

It is 10.30 pm at night and I have just come in from a few pints so if my spelling is some what blurred, please excuse me.

David

 

[Mike375]

In total it took about 20 mins to number crunch and print the results. Not bad if you think that it took one person from technical accounts 10 mins for one person. This program saved them close to 250,000 GPB. Now when I asked for a rise they said no.

David, I think this is a general problem in that people don't realise the time/effort that has gone into developing the knowledge. With the professions such a doctor, dentist and solicitor they realise the deal. As you well know anyone who is reasonably good at this stuff will have seen the sun rise while they are on the keyboard.

That program could be run over and over again simply by entering a different % increase and after 20 mins the answer was there.

I have had similar in the sense that I have done something that I think is pretty magic but very often the person just sees as simple "click here"

In general I have found the best prospects, that is, those that are real happy to pay and seem to have a lot of gratitude are those who have tried to do things in Excel and sometimes have had a go at Access. With Access they rarely get past making a couple of tables.

 

[Lightwave]

In general I have found the best prospects, that is, those that are real happy to pay and seem to have a lot of gratitude are those who have tried to do things in Excel and sometimes have had a go at Access. With Access they rarely get past making a couple of tables.

Like a lot of things you need a little bit of knowledge to fully appreciate complicated things...

Sadly a lot of managers have zero knowledge of some of their processes and therefore you could be tying your shoelaces for all they know.

In which case they are likely to have little vision, no long term view and be adding little to the value of the organisation..

I doubt succesful projects and key staff will be valued appropriately under such circumstances.
Recommend you watch "The Wire" for instruction in feckless management technique.

 

[hardyd44]

I would just like to add my personal experiences - I am a transport manager by trade, but have self taught myself access over the last 8-9 years or so. Originally because i was frustrated with excel and its limitations whilst I was on secondment doing some project work with a lot of what if scenarios.

I have moved companies 3 times in that period and each company have found that there was little or no control systems in place - using a word template for invoices, or litterly hundereds of simple excel "lists" not proper spreadsheets. I have at each company wrote from scratch a control system that included invoicing, purchases, payroll along with specialities relevant to that company.

I am now leaving my present employer for many reasons - main one being he lied to me about a bonus payment for writing their system which was post it notes and word before I started. I did this outside of my normal duties as a transport manager - he never goes near a PC and does not have anything to do with the normal day to day requirements of running the business.

The user's of the system think I am the best thing since sliced bread, he can't see that because he cannot see the oppertunity cost that was mentioned earlier thats what my system saves him. Trying to persude him otherwise is a lost cause, thats why I am off.

I must add I went back to one of my previous employers last November to do some upgrades/changes to the system and was pleased to see it still being used every day as it was designed and I left there 4 years ago, on good terms may I add