Hi,
We launched a start-up last year providing school supplies to French school children in the UK. As per the website, you choose a school, then a class and buy a package of school supplies (pens, paper, notebooks, etc.).
Last year, as we built the business as developed a spreadsheet that managed a number of tasks
Products:
 We needed to source over 150 products in total
• Some products were required by almost every class in all schools, whereas other products were used once only
•The products were placed into categories / sub-categories to provide some sense of order
 Some products needed to be split by brand
• E.g. A4 notebooks were made by Caligraph and Clarefontaine
• Therefore, we needed to associate products with the supplier that sold a particular brand
 For each product we needed to identify how many were required by each class in each school
• This acted as part of the calculation to confirm what orders were made to each supplier
We also had some optional products that may be associated with some of the classes (e.g. calculators, etc.)
Suppliers:
 We dealt with 8 main suppliers and 2-3 specialists
 Each of the main suppliers were able to offer specific brands for some (never all) of the products
 For each brand we had a number of pieces of information such as:
• Product ID
• Batch size (many items came in packs of 5-10)
• Price (ex-or inclusive of VAT / sterling or Euro)
 We used the spreadsheet to support order management and stock in terms of:
• How many items were required
• How many needed to be ordered (in batches)
• What stock was remaining
Schools / Classes:
 For each school, we defined what products were needed for each class (40 classes in total)
•The requirements for each school varied – this meant that the class list was different for each school
• We used the product list for each class on the website (in both English and French)
 For each school, we also defined which supplier would be used for a particular product
 We had an eCommerce platform that captured how many orders were made for a particular class
 We used the spreadsheet to therefore work out how much to order from specific suppliers based on:
• Orders per class
• What products were used by the class
• What brands
Customers:
 A separate eCommerce package was used to record what orders had been made for a particular class(es)
• It also highlighted any optional items that had been ordered
 We input this information into the spreadsheet so that we could then:
• Provide some reporting on orders per school / per class
• Calculate how many products to order from specific suppliers
• Identify optional items that had been ordered
The spreadsheet was also used for managing the business by providing summaries in areas such as:
o Overall sales made (summary of data imported from the eCommerce platform)
o Overall costs of boxes for each class (this gave us information on potential pricing)
o Stock remaining
The spreadsheet was very complex and difficult to maintain. Therefore, this year we need to have an Access database solution instead. It needs to be simple enough for non-techies to understand. We have a much better description of the requirements along with the spreadsheet for the person / group that we work with. We need someone to design the database, build it, import the relevant data from the spreadsheet and provide adequate information to allow us to then manage it.
This is the first time we have tried Freelancer and so happy to take questions on anything.
Although we are sealing the bids, lowest price will not be the only criteria. We are a small business and so don't have a lot to spend. However, we need someone that can do a great job.