I have an accounting program with a SQL backend. The application has a
built-in Crystal Reports function, but the end users do not have CR
and want the report as an XLS. I need to be able to create monthly
Excel reports for customers with information pulled from the database.
The reports are formatted the same for each customer, with a few
exceptions (company name, logo, address is different for each). The
remainder of the report has columns with values to be pulled from the
database (item code, item cost, quantity ordered, total cost, etc.).
The idea behind the Excel template is simply to make the format clean
and consistent.

I don't know much about the database connectivity concept, but from
the research I've done, it looks as if I need to somehow make an ODBC
connection to the database from my Excel template, then create some
queries to pull the appropriate information in.

Can anyone help a newbie and provide some pointers on what I need to
lookup to figure out how to do this (how do I make the ODBC
connection? how can I embed my queries in my Excel template? would it
make more sense to extract the data from the accounting application
into the application's built-in Crystal Reports function and then
export to an Excel template?)?

Any information greatly appreciated.

TIA,
Yellowbird