Well, that all depends on how you are connecting to that back end. If this is just a split Microsoft Access database and you're using something like a VPN which connects over the Internet, then yes, it's going to go slow.

Remember how Microsoft Access works... It's a file-based database system. So if you run a query and let's say you're looking for just the customers from Florida, your front end has to request all of the records from the back end. So if you get 100,000 customers in there, it's going to pull all 100,000 records down and then it figures out the ones that are from Florida.

This is opposed to a true client-server database solution such as Microsoft Access with an SQL Server back end. In that case, Access just says to the SQL server, "Hey, show me the customers from Florida." The server figures out and just sends you those 10 customers. So it's much, much faster. So if you're using a VPN or something like that, that would explain why it's so slow. Access really isn't designed to work like that.

So, you can either upgrade your back end to SQL Server, or you could use some kind of a remote desktop solution, which is what I use when I'm traveling. I'll leave my Access database running in my office on a computer, and then I just connect into it and use Remote Desktop. There's lots of different options available. See my page on Access Online for more details.