I use VBA with Microsoft Access and do consulting in Access. Often users start something in Excel and it becomes so large and/or complex that it becomes a good candidate for an Access upgrade. Access is Microsoft's desktop database and is included in Microsoft Office Professional version. You can create very user-friendly screens and reports in Access. (SQL Server is Microsoft's enterprise level database) I created an option backtester in Access (similar to Tradestation or Amibroker) because there was no product on the market at that time. VBA is the macro language behind all of the Microsoft Office products.
In short, I have my data stored in SQL and load it into Excel which is used as a front end for final analysis. Basically, a lot of stuff is computed in C#, stored in SQL and then loaded into Excel.
I'm having minor issues - particularly since I'm updating intraday (either automatically or by discretion) - but so far I'm living with it. Issues being speed/stability when loading data.
Is Access both a database and a front-end?