I need someone to program an Excel workbook.

I want to be able to easily and quickly enter and edit previously entered 
information that would allow simple tracking of customers and projects
by sales reps.   

I would like to be able to email or collaborate over the web so that
projects are kept up to date.

I would like to include a color tag so we can easily see problems


What I anticipate is something along the following 

Distributor is the workbook
Distributor Rep is one per page
Customer/project is a heading
Action items are listed 

Column headings are
Owned by (to see who is responsible for an action item)
Date due 
Status colors in date field(Red/Problem, Green/OK, blue is planning
date to have something done


I want to have a person able to  revise/modified the sheet as needed
to keep it up to date to meet our needs

I want the visible infor on the sheet to be short and sweet and use
comments to add more details.

This does not immediately strike me as an Excel application.

Could you please quantify the various elements?

This sounds more like a full fledged database application , or if in
dire need an Access application

So tell me what I need and a estimate of cost for your work.  I have
MS Project on the laptop and Office 2000.

Am willing to get MS Access if necessary but what will it do for me ?

If you have Office 2000 you should also have Access. It is a
relational database program that would be much more flexible and
powerful for what you want to to. Excel can do a lot but its primary
function is to calculate quantities based on formulas within cells. If
you want to track customers/clients/distributors and the work
performed for/with them, I too would reccommend a database
application. There are much more powerful programs than Access (and
much more expensive) but with a little creativity, Access can do some
pretty good data manipulation like summaries, reports, custom
listings, etc. It can be set up with simple user forms to allow data
input. In your case, the Distributor would be a "table", the
Distributor Rep would be a "record" within the table, Customer/Project
could be a heading (or modifiable field in the record) and the Action
Items would be "data fields" within the record. (Tables contain
Records, Records contain Fields, Fields contain the data).

Look for some simple tutorials online to get a better understanding of
what Access can do, then you will have a better idea of what you want
it to do.

Here's one from FGCU to get you started:
<http://www.fgcu.edu/support/office2000/access/>