In 1984 there was Dbase III and little else for desktop PC database programs.  Given the minimal power of the PCs, it did a great job.  A few years later a professor from Case Western Reserve developed FoxBase as a programming exercise for his grad students and its enhanced performance vaulted it over Dbase.

FoxBase became FoxPro for Windows and Microsoft bought the company and created Microsoft Visual FoxPro which is now up to version 9.0.   On today's PCs and network Visual FoxPro can comfortably accommodate data tables with over a million rows.

While a majority of small businesses can use either QuickBooks or a program produced for their specific industry, sometimes the requirements are unique and only a custom program makes sense.

This program started as a simple order & inventory program but has grown since 1985 to add EDI (electronic document interchange) capability for large retailer customers.

The order portion of the program uses POS Partner, a popular desktop credit card processing program, to authorize credit card charges directly.

The order program exports data for each shipment for use in the UPS and Fedex programs.

It also processes data exported by UPS and Fedex to update tracking numbers into the orders

Another example of a custom program is one used to track the progress of union apprentices through their training and apprentice work progam.

This is the Apprentice information screen where a huge number of details are recorded to track progress.

THat information must then be reported in a multitude of ways to satisfy the apprentices, the unions and regulatory agencies.