G'day Nanook,

If you are basically unfamiliar with excel, it's going to be a steep learning curve to establish a database.

Excel is primarily for reports and summaries, if you want a database MSACCESS is what you need.

I prefer Filemaker Pro as it is much easier to learn and a little more newbie friendly, however, it does lack some of the sophistication of Access, but is more than adequate for my purposes.

It has taken me probably a good six months to build my database and it's only half finished with everything I want in it!

If you have any specific questions, I'm more than happy to offer advice, or if you want feedback on testing theories (without giving away all your secrets) I can do that for you as well - if my database contains the info that you're after.