Conditional Tallying, Linked .xls, Access Table Creation

Hi all-
I work for a staffing firm and I'm trying to figure out a way to turn exports from our vendor-based sql gui (i.e. I can only get .xls files out of it, can't just run SQL queries) into spiffy reports using Crystal Reports. My grand plan is to use Access to process these various XLS files (one for each client) by linking them to an Access DB and coding a table to conditionally tally individual records based on different criteria.

The criteria are company name, position name, date submitted, active, and status. I was able to code an Excel template that did the trick perfectly, but required each file to be edited to reflect the new report format, and updated as more positions are added. My question is this: is there some way for me to create a DB that links to the XLS files for each client and puts each company name, position name, date submitted (pulled straight from XLS files) and then the following tallies:

submitted (just # of pos name by date)
accepted (status != "s" AND active = "y" by date)
etc.

I don't really expect someone to do all my coding for me, maybe just point me in the right direction, as the only coding outside of excel formula coding (which I feel doesn't really count despite my proficiency) that I've done has been over a decade ago. Any suggestions?