Such a design goal is not workable in ms-access.
The problem is if you add a new column, then all of the other reports, data
input forms, and even your processing code will have to be changed. While
you might now just have one report, in a few years as you develop this
application, you likely will have many data entry forms, many code routines
that process data, and many reports that report on data.
If you add just one column, or field to your table, then virtually ALL OF
the above things like code, reports etc will have to be modified. You can
imagine a large complex accounting system. Adding just one field would
require huge amounts of the application to be re-written, as each part of
the application would be need to be come aware of the new field. It is like
building a building, and then chaining your mind as to how the building
should be built. Trying to change something already built is EXTREMITY
difficult, and this also applies to data tables in a software package.
Worse, as eventually the database gets so un-manageable, you will be fired
for incompetence and loose your job since you will spend all your time
re-design parts of the application, and get no work done!. We don't really
want that! ;-)
So, I will suggest you do some reading on what is called data modeling, or
data normalizing. If a product like quicken accounting can satisfy millions
of businesses around the world and NEVER NEED a new column added for each
different company, then you too can come up with a solution that does not
require the addition of new columns. Adding new columns/fields to a
application is extremely expensive from a developers/programmer time. And, I
sure you know how expense developers are these days. However, adding new
records is very cheap from a application point of view.
So, it is not practical to add new columns to an application, as reports and
all kinds of things will need to be modified to work with the new column You
need to come up with a design where the columns and data structure is STABLE
and NOT changing. It is common to add new columns with a spreadsheet, but
this is deadly mistake when working with a database. A database system is
NOT a spreadsheet, and the same spreadsheet approach to problem solving will
NOT work.
The reason why you cannot easily find a grid control, or something that lets
you easily add new columns for data entry is because no one works that way,
and thus your quest to find such a setup is going to be very hard indeed. We
don't develop software that way, and it don't work.
It is possible that you just need to show/hide some existing columns during
data entry, and that is certainly a different problem. Usually, just adding
few extra text boxes in a continuous form will do the trick. You can either
show/hide those additional columns, or simply set the data source of the
text box at run time. However, you certainly do NOT want to add additional
columns to your table designs (and, to be fair, perhaps you were/are NOT
suggesting/asking how to add additional columns to tables, but just for
display purpose). So, if you just need to hide/display a few extra columns,
then that is not a big deal, and very easy. Adding new columns to data
structure is VERY HARD.
Here is some reading on data normaling, which does eliminate the need to add
columns in a application:
ACC2002: Database Normalization Basics
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=283878
Database Normalization Tips by Luke Chung
http://www.fmsinc.com/tpapers/genaccess/databasenorm.html
Data Normalization Fundamentals by Luke Chung
http://www.fmsinc.com/tpapers/datanorm/index.html
324613 - Support WebCast: Database Normalization Basics
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=324613