Updating data on an Access Database

grettons

Hi all,
I hope someone can help.

I've created a an ordering database that includes all the customer details and parts they wish to order etc.

As part of the database I want to know if it is possible to be able to automate the the status of the lines that have been ordered. The reason for this is that we have 18 different manufacturers which can all be at different stages of manufacturing.

All of the Orders have a unique reference number and each line has a unique number to identify it.

The current process is that we download all the Orders (with lines) that are at a status of "Ordered", then send them to each manufacturer, they then update the status e.g. dispatched, out of stock etc. and we manually go through line by line and amend the database.

I'm sure there must be a less manual way of updating the orders but I can't get anything i've tried to work (update/append queries).

hopefully someone can point me in the right direction.

Many thanks

Grettons