Rutba Data Files: a free database for small businesses, with twenty-five to start from

There is a point where a spreadsheet stops being enough. The customer list is copied into the invoice sheet, the invoice sheet into the stock sheet, and the copies drift apart. Microsoft Access has long been the next step for a small business, on Windows and with some Microsoft 365 plans. Rutba Data Files, which arrived with Rutba Office 2.12 on 21 October, does the same job and costs nothing.

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Data Files in a few minutes: tables, a query, a form and a report.

Related tables in one file

A database is one .rbase file on your computer. Inside it is SQLite, and the format is published as an open specification with a checker, so your records are never locked into Rutba Office. Make a table and give it fields: text, numbers, currency, dates and yes/no, each required, unique or with a default. Relate a field to another table, and the database keeps it from pointing at nothing.

• Queries you design. Add tables, choose fields and write criteria as Access does: > 10, Like "A*", Between two dates, Is Null. Add Totals to group and add up, and calculated columns such as Total: [Quantity]*[Price], with Round, IIf, DateDiff, Format and the other functions people use. The SQL view shows what the design stands for.
• Forms. One click makes a form for a table, with a list of names for each field that points elsewhere and the related records underneath. Since 2.17 a list too long to hold is a box you search as you type.
• Reports. A page of records grouped by customer, say, with totals for each group and the whole, printed or saved as a PDF.
• Search and filter (2.15). A search box over any table or query, a filter on every column by its type, and Only this value from a right-click, as in Access.
• Import. CSV and TSV files, the old dBASE, Access and Lotus files Worksheets reads, and since 2.18 whole .xlsx and .ods workbooks.
• Mail merge. Documents takes a Data Files table or saved query as the recipient list for letters, and only ever reads it.

Print templates for what a business sends out

A report lists many records. A print template, new in 2.13, lays out one record the way a business sends it: an invoice, a receipt, a payslip, a tenancy agreement. The letterhead comes from a table of the business’s own details, the lines carry their totals, and there are places to sign. Paper can be A4, Letter or A5, or an 80 mm or 58 mm till roll for a receipt. Print it, or save it as a PDF, straight from the form showing the record.

Since 2.16 a template can say which records it is for, such as a delivery note for shipped orders only, and show a part only when it applies, such as the change given on a cash sale. Lines can carry a running balance from an opening to a closing figure, or sit under headings with a subtotal for each. Since 2.17.1 a related record is printed by its name, so a letter says Dear Zara Tanaka, not Dear TEN-0017.

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Invoices, receipts, payslips and agreements printed from your own records.

Twenty-five businesses to learn from

Data Files’ start screen offers a working database for twenty-five kinds of small business: shops and food, trade and building, services, health and learning, and property and staff. Choose one with sample records, a year or more of invented trading made up a day at a time, to see how it works. Or choose it empty, with the same tables, queries, forms, reports and print templates waiting for your own records. Five simpler ready-made databases sit beside them: Contacts, Inventory, Membership, Customers and sales, and a Lending library.

Each sample comes with a guide as full as Northwind’s, and each has its own page on office.rutba.io with that guide, its whole design and a download, and a film of its own. Larkspur Corner Store runs a till with VAT and loyalty cards. Northbank Trading takes a wholesaler from order to invoice. Copperbeech Motors sells used cars with finance, warranties and part-exchanges. Wrenmoor Garden Centre keeps staff, holidays and payroll. The samples page has every one of them, and the business templates post goes through all twenty-five.

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The twenty-five sample businesses, one for each kind of small business.

Newer designs, and yours kept

The samples and templates arrive with Rutba Office’s own update check, signed by Rutba. A database made from one remembers where it came from, and when a newer design arrives it is offered, never forced. New tables and fields are added and nothing is taken away. A query, form or template you never touched is replaced, and one you changed keeps your version, with the newer one beside it.

Data Files is one of the apps you add from Choose apps. From 2.17 it also handles several people and tables kept elsewhere: people and roles, and tables linked to PostgreSQL and MySQL.