In a pickle and need to pick your brains

[yus786]

I need to pick your brains about having a 'Payment' Table/Form

I'm creating a DB for a small Sunday school.

The DB is dead basic - it captures all the basic, emergency, class, parent details etc.

I have now been asked to to add an addition to this DB.

They need to record the FEES paid (which is paid 4 weekly).

Frankly i don't know where to start and would be grateful if you can advise me with any idea's you may have.

Some details about the FEES section.

• 50 kids
• 5 classes
• Fees paid 4 weekly
• They need to be able to pull off reports etc of any individual who hasn't paid up for any given period.
• The admin staff would also like to INPUT the fees per class (rather than searching for individual records)

Hope this make sense.

Many thanks

 

[NJBuckeye]

You may want to look at the Microsoft site as there are some templates that address this type of database. There is one called Membership. I often use these as a resource, simply to see how they did some specific thing, even though I don't want to use the template in its entirety.

Did you assign each child/adult an unique ID? and the class (which may just be the name of the class)?

Once you create a table with class, date, and participant's ID, you have a few options.

You could add a fee to this table, but it is going to get large after a while as there will be a new entry each time you add a pay period. So, if you want this table solely as a roster...

Basically, you want a table with class ID, child ID, date, and then amount paid. I'd do amount paid so that if someone only pays a partial amount, you know.

I suppose you'd also need a table with date, class, amount due, and then use that amount as a comparison with the above table. $45 was due in May, and only $3 was paid, etc. Also, if you use the same dates in each table, you can account for people who start in June, as opposed to January, and not make them accountable for the first 5 months of the year.

On the other hand, I tend to take really complicated pasts to a solution, which pays off in my data retrieval, but is often much more than anyone else wants or needs. (The result of a professor who took everything to the absolute most basic level).

I'd really take a look at the Microsoft site... I jsut used some parts of the membership template, and I think it has the elements you need.

 

[yus786]

What i have done so far is created a table that consists of

StudentID
ClassID
Period1
Period2
...
..
...
Period12

This will allow me to enter the fees for each student for each period.

I don't think this is that good TBH.

What will happen in year 2? How will 'the user' create a new table for the 12 periods of year 2.

See where i'm coming from?

As i won't be the user - i need to keep this as simple as possible for the user.

Any more advices anyone?

Much appreciated.