To start with: I am the dummy and I need help. I will use the most technical terms I know to describe what I need. If you are the one I need you will hopefully be able to understand!
My company needs something like a database (currently we use an unmanageable amount of Excel sheets) where you put in lots of financial data on different companies. This database will then spit out a beautiful PDF booklet that presents the place and data.
It should be super-userfriendly (meaning: I should be able to use it), quick and easy to update and ideally it will extract data on its own from sources like P&Ls.
Sorry that I cannot be much more specific here, but if you think you can do this please PM me!

Sounds to me like you need an application developer. By definition, that typically includes database work. If one exists to suit your requirements, it might be cheaper to use an off-the-shelf package. Even then, you'd need a pro to set it up and make it as user-friendly as you want it. Either way, I suggest you'd benefit from talking to one or more consultants, explaining your requirements in as much detail as possible, and asking them to provide quotes for executing the job.

Hi,
thanks for everybody's PMs so far, I will get back to all of you on Monday - during office hours, of course!

Hi everybody,
thanks for the overwhelming amount of response from you all!
I was able to find a suitable solution very quickly, thanks to all the others and better luck next time!
swisskat

Just curious: when you write that you have found a suitable solution do you mean you've found an off-the-shelf package that you can use immediately or have you only found someone to develop the solution for you?

BTW It would have been nice to receive a personal answer, even a short one would have been fine.

Hi Martin,
I have found somebody who will develop a solution for us.
I would have liked to thank everybody for their offer personally, but as there were so many offers I simply do not have the time to do so, sorry.

How many thousand of answers did you get?

If you didn't contact all the people who responded to your offer I am wondering on what criteria you based your final decision? The first to respond? The most friendly message? The best username (avatar)?

I am not saying you didn't choose the best offer but if you did then it would seem that it is very much down to luck. TBH I wasn't expecting to get the assignment but I was expecting to at least be given a fair chance to get it.

Hey, he's the customer, you didn't get the work.
Its irrelevant how he made his decision.
End of story.

It's just that on an EF level it doesn't seem very friendly.
...and on a purely customer-contractor level it doesn't seem very professional.

But you are right I don't have any experience in this sort of thing...So maybe that's the way it works (and should work)?

At least I was perspicacious enough to realise that the customer was a woman