The answer to your question depends on a number of things:

1) How much RAM does your computer have?
2) Which version of XL are you using?
3) What version of Windows are you using?

Generally speaking, the more RAM you have and the more recent your version
of XL and Windows, the more stable your workbook will be. I run Office 2003
on Windows XP and routinely use workbooks that are 50+MB in size.

As for calculations being easier in Excel than Access--pretty much anything
you want to calculate in XL can be done in Access. It may take some work or
customization to get the same result in Access as in Excel. But you are
correct to worry about keeping a depository of KPMs in a non-relational flat
file like XL. The trick is to convince your management that such data more
appropriately belongs in a secured database.

--
Brevity is the soul of wit.


"Penny C." wrote:

I've got an Excel file that is nearly 9MB. It has 68 tabs, half of which are
mostly formulas. Management uses it as the be-all-end-all data repository
for our KPMs, and they refuse to allow me to paste values in for some of the
older data (it goes back to 1998). I caution them each time we add a new tab
that I'm nervous about how much more it will take and that formulas could get
corrupt, etc. I've done everything I can think of to make sure it is as
small as possible without deleting anything or changing formulas. Because of
some of the calculations, it is not easily put into an Access database. Am I
worried for nothing? It has been taking longer and longer to open and save
it.