That's in fact what I was hired to do. I told them the first day on the job that they really needed a database, even sketched the schema. But they were adaman

That's in fact what I was hired to do. I told them the first day on the job that they really needed a database, even sketched the schema. But they were adamant that it had to be an Excel solution so I wasted three months trying to untangle the crap that was there all the while trying to persuade them that a DB and a simpler front end would be much better. Eventually they agreed.