Issues with Database Design

[xraive]

I am currently designing a database to manage budgets at the office. The objective is to be able to track Invoices, Travel Expenses, Purchase Orders, and Contracts. All these are assigned Budget Codes and Expense Codes. This way the office can view reports on how specific budget were spent. I currently have the following tables.

Budget Codes
Expense Codes
Travel Expenses
Invoices
Purchase Orders
Purchase Order Details
Contracts
Contract Addendums

Am i going in the right direction?

[MMcCarthy]

Your table list is not bad but you need to look at the logic and processes first before getting into table design. Look at things like how you want to categorise outgoings from the point of view of budgets. Think about using a payment code system and tying it to a list of categories that relates to budgets. So if a budget allowance covered both contracts and purchases for instance it wouldn't matter because you would look at the costs through the filter of the payment codes and the cateory those payments were made in regardless of how they arose.

Don't forget you will also need a supplier table and service providers shoud be included in the same table I would guess.

My advice is to look at your outgoings and in particular how they relate to the budget cateories. This will tell you more about how to structure than anything else.

Mary