Advice required on MS Access/PHP/MySQL

[Yesideez]

A friend has a company on which he currently has a database in MS Access 2007 which is shared on his local network in the office.

 

When he designed and created the database he didn't link two main tables together and now it's grown to over 12,000 records he's asked me to take a look at it.

 

I've successfully converted the data over to MySQL although we're unsure my code has auto linked all the data together that should be so this will require some time in itself.

 

The reason I've emigrated it to MySQL is because there's some things he's asked me to do for him like generate PDF files on the fly of properties when desired and other stuff where PHP is ideal.

 

Ideally he'd like to keep his database running on MS Access because he knows how to edit this (very much still a beginner although he's much better than I am) and he wants to make sure he'll not become unstuck in the future if his database needs attention and I'm not around - him learning PHP/MySQL/HTML is not an option.

 

I've heard PHP can talk to a MS Access database but I've no idea where to start with this - I have dyspraxia so learning how this could be done might take a very long time.

 

He'd also like to give clients a login so they can view/progress info on their properties and logins for his staff so they can view their stuff. All this I can do but the initial problem is his database.

 

It only has two tables, one listing all his customers and the second listing all the work carried out. Although all properties relate to data in the work table not all work can relate back as some work would be a one-off job.

 

What I'd like to know please is how would you tackle this?