I am familiar with VB/AB code
Good ODBC Connectivity (at least to MS SQL)
Good built-in reporting features in Access
Better speed with VB

Anyone have any suggestions, comments etc...

I have never used Crystal Reports, is it similar to reporting
in Access?

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

TIA,
  Dean

        I'm new on this newsgroup, but this question you're asking is
probably one of the most asked ones, but a very good one to ask before
you begin your project.  I've been using quite a bit of VB and done some
poking around to do comparisons between VB and Access for database work
and have come to a few conclusions which I hope you'll find useful.
As I develop a lot in VB, my approach to comparison is from the VB end:
VB's strengths:

1.      VB is able to produce very good GUIs.  By very good, I mean being
able to develop a professional interface with plenty of bells and
whistles, to the point it sometimes gets abused.

2.      VB exe files are quite happy with a lot less RAM compared to an
Access app of the same functionality.  As a rough guide, most VB apps are
quite alright with 4 MB, whereas Access often need 8 MB to run
respectably.  This should be an important feature if your project is to
be implemented on a wide scale on many machines.

3.      VB exes, all thing equal, run faster than Access apps.

4.      VB exes do not need the users to have purchaed a copy of Access,
complete or runtime.  The supporting DLLs for VB such as VB300.DLL can be
distibuted royalty free, again a feature if you plan to distribute your
app widely.

5.      There is an incredible amount of support avialable for VB, in
terms of VBXs, books and news groups like this one.

Okay, now the brickbats:

1.      If you are doing a lot of database manipulations, much of VBs
support is "manual" in that there is support to read, write and browse
through databases only.  The relational aspect you have to look after.  I
am not sure if this is the case with Access, though I suspect it's
probably more advanced.

2.      There is no security support for database access using VB.  You
cannot selectively allow different users to see different parts of the
database. I don have an idea of a workaround on this in mind by have not
tried it yet.  Just note, though:  this idea will require a copy of
Access to create the database file in the first place.

I have used VB on a variety of database apps, and to sum it up, when the
app is "light" on the databes and heavier on GUI and computation, VB
comes out on top.  When the app is "heavy" on the database with plenty of
relations to other dbs, it becomes quite a bit more tricky.  As for the
Crystal Reports bit, I don't know how much easier it is than Access as I
have not tried Access, but don't worry - I was able to pick it up and use
it within a day.  Also, check out the MSDN CDROMs if you have them.  
There's plenty of help on this issue which might guide you further to
your ultimate decision.

All the best and feel free to email me if you need more help.

Regards

Chris Tan

"Software development is a discipline, not a black art"