Microsoft Access Services
Free initial review · Written findings and estimate before any billable work · No retainer
Most Access databases that need a consultant share the same history. They started as a small tool, grew for years, absorbed workarounds from several different authors, and are now business-critical - quoting, stock, billing, compliance - while the person who understood them has moved on. The database is slow, or it crashes under multiple users, or leadership is asking whether it should be replaced, and nobody inside the company can answer with confidence.
Hiring a developer at that point is premature. Code written against a wrong diagnosis patches symptoms while the root cause - an unindexed join, a non-split multi-user file, a table design that fights normalization - keeps costing you time and data. Experienced MS Access consultants exist to get the diagnosis right first: what is wrong, why, what each option costs, and which risks you are actually carrying. It is the same role whether you call it a consultancy engagement or bringing in an Access database expert - diagnosis before a single line of code gets written.
That is the division of labor across our team. The consultant tells you what to do and why. Our MS Access programmers and developers then execute the plan - or your own people do, using our written findings. If you already know exactly what needs building, you can hire an MS Access developer directly and skip the advisory step.
Every engagement is scoped in writing before billable work starts. Most fall into one of five advisory services, each of which produces a concrete written deliverable you own regardless of what you do next.
Diagnosis, strategy, and risk assessment - each with a written deliverable you keep.
A structured audit of your entire Access database: table design and normalization, indexing, query construction, form and report logic, VBA quality, locking behavior, file size against the 2 GB .accdb limit, backups, and security. As your Access database consultant, we rank findings by risk with an effort estimate for each fix.
We evaluate how the database is put together - split front-end/back-end configuration, linked tables, where business logic lives, how it integrates with Excel, Outlook, or other systems - and document what should change before the next phase of growth breaks it.
We measure where the time actually goes: unindexed joins and filter fields, queries that pull entire tables to display ten rows, volatile expressions evaluated per record, bloat that compact & repair no longer controls, and network bottlenecks in multi-user setups. You get a prioritized tuning plan with expected impact.
The decision most consultations exist to answer. We compare keeping and optimizing Access, moving the back end to SQL Server while keeping your forms, and converting to a web application - with realistic costs, timelines, and risks for your specific database, documented in writing.
For databases the business cannot operate without, we assess single points of failure: corruption exposure, missing backups, key-person dependency, undocumented VBA, and concurrency limits. The output is a plain-language risk register your leadership can act on.
Some clients keep a senior consultant on call for architectural decisions, code review, and enhancement scoping as their database evolves. Billed hourly at fixed-scope pricing with no retainer required.
This is the question we answer most, and the honest answer differs case by case. Desktop Access remains an excellent tool inside its envelope: a properly split database serves roughly 5–10 heavy concurrent users, the .accdb format caps at 2 GB per file, and the client only runs on Windows - there is no real browser or mobile story for Access forms. Whether those limits matter depends entirely on your team and your growth.
A consultant's job is to match your database to the cheapest path that actually solves the problem - not to sell the biggest project. We put the recommendation and its trade-offs in writing so you can defend the decision internally.
Scenario: A 12-year-old Access database runs order processing for the whole company. The original author left, performance is degrading, and management wants to know if it will survive another three years.
Outcome: A health check and risk assessment: documented structure, a ranked defect list, and a two-phase plan - immediate stabilization now, SQL Server back end when user count grows.
Scenario: Month-end reporting from Access takes two days of manual work and the numbers occasionally disagree with the ledger. The team is debating replacing Access entirely.
Outcome: A performance and logic audit found the discrepancies came from duplicated query logic, not from Access itself. Fixing the queries and automating the run cost a fraction of a replacement system.
Scenario: An unsplit .accdb on a shared drive serves nine users and corrupts every few weeks. IT wants to move everything to a SaaS platform; operations wants to keep the workflows they built.
Outcome: An architecture review recommended splitting the database and upsizing the back end to SQL Server - keeping every form the team relies on while eliminating the corruption pattern.
Your database is business-critical and the person who built it is gone
You are being pushed toward an expensive replacement and want an independent second opinion
The database is slow, crashing, or corrupting and nobody has found the root cause
You need to plan for growth - more users, more data, more locations - before it breaks
You need documented findings to justify a budget request to leadership
The change is small and well-understood - a new report, a form tweak, a single automation. Paying for diagnosis you already have wastes money.
These three options are not interchangeable, and picking the wrong one is the most common way Access projects go over budget.
Best when the problem or the right path is unclear. You pay for diagnosis, strategy, and a written plan. Typical spend is 5-30 hours at fixed-scope pricing, and the output de-risks everything that follows. The failure mode of skipping this step is building the wrong thing well - the reason most businesses bring in Access database consultants before hiring a builder.
Best when the requirement is defined and you need execution: forms, queries, reports, VBA, migrations. Hiring development without a diagnosis works fine for well-understood changes, but for structural problems a developer without a plan is guessing on your budget.
Viable for small, single-user databases and for teams with genuine Access depth in-house. The risks show up at the edges: multi-user locking, corruption recovery, indexing strategy, and migration planning are where self-taught setups usually fail - and where recovery costs more than prevention would have.
Why teams work with us
Senior practitioners who diagnose first, put everything in writing, and can also build.
We never quote a build before understanding the database. Every engagement starts with a free review and a written scope, so you know what you are paying for and why before the first billable hour.
Two decades of hands-on Access, VBA, and SQL Server work across finance, logistics, manufacturing, healthcare, and professional services. We have seen the failure modes before they happen to you.
We tell you when a small optimization solves the problem and when a migration is genuinely justified. The recommendation, trade-offs, and estimates go in a document you own.
If you want one accountable team, the same people who diagnosed your database can implement the plan - at the same fixed-scope pricing rate, with fixed-price options for defined scope.
Free review first, written scope second, billable work only after approval.
Send your database file or describe the situation. We look at the objects, identify the problem category, and tell you honestly whether you need a full assessment or a targeted fix.
You receive a document listing what we will assess, the approach, timeline, and cost - hourly or fixed-price. Nothing is billed until you approve it in writing.
We audit structure, performance, code, and risk against your real data and real user load - not a copy that behaves differently.
A written report with root causes, prioritized recommendations, and effort estimates for each item. We walk your team through it on a call.
Proceed with us, your internal team, or another vendor - the report is written to stand alone. If we implement, it runs under a separate written scope with milestone reviews.
FAQ
Straight answers to the questions businesses ask before hiring a database consultant
Describe your database - what it does, what is wrong or worrying you, and what you are trying to decide. We reply with an initial read and a clear next step, typically within about an hour. Free review, written estimate, no obligation.
Prefer to talk? Call us at +1 385 386 3860
