The data you collect is important, most of it will be vital, customer names & addresses, lists of who bought what & when, accounts due or amounts paid, up-coming projects, completed work yet to be billed. What would happen if you lost all this information? We understand the importance of YOUR data which is why we backup all database content to a secure location every night, automatically.
A relational database
A relational database is where your data is stored in seperate tables with 'connections' allowing you to connect the data ie you give your customer an ID number (customer_id) and use this to store his name, address etc. When you add an order in the order table include the 'customer_id' and you will be able to find all that customers orders. Similarly if each product has a unique ID which inturn is also used in the ordering system you would be able to produce a list of customers who purchased the same item.
Example data map (schema):
We would usually take a look at your business & it's structure (data use) and design a system around this & any future plans you might have or be considering. If you already have a web designer and just need someone to produce a schema (database plan) we are happy to do that for you.