Brisprad

Thanks again ThatOneGuy! After I posted about relating the Charges and Payments, I realized it was fairly easy to do. I got a fair amount done yesterday on my layouts. I had some done but found better ways of implementing a few ideas. I also realized that I could use your suggestion about filtering portals for the pet table. I have a portal on the client page that lists their pets. Unfortunately, pets pass away and once they're gone, we don't want them to show in the active list. (I'll eventually add a script to make a new reservation for all pets (or some) for a client). I'm going to make add a status type field so I can have a portal each of active and deceased. It's a standard for animal hospitals as well-you don't want to remind a client about a pet that recently passed away-if it isn't on their active list you know why. Thanks again for the great advice. I do really appreciate it. Brisprad

Hi ThatOneGuy, Thanks for the suggestions! I really appreciate it. I was trying to figure out a way that a Payment could be distinguished between a deposit and a payment for the charges. The scary thing is after seeing your example file I actually understand! I did look things over last night and decided that the Payments Applied wasn't nescessary (I had seen a post here that was similar and it seemed it would apply for my situation). The only thing I can't seem to grasp then how should Charges relate to the Reservation? I can see that with your suggestion, from a Reservation layout, I could see the payments applied towards it (which would be good for the future when we look back on history). I'm trying to improve our current software and some of this is modeled a little on it. Our current software creates a Charges Detail when a pet leaves-it shows the payment info and the total charges. But the record itself is a separate record from the Reservation. Even though there's 1000 things I dislike about the software, this I thought made sense. I'm currently working on a prototype to get approval for a more robust version. I get frustrated when things don't work exactly right but for some reason, I still really enjoy doing this! Thanks again for your help! Brisprad

Hi again, I'm having more relationship issues-the FileMaker kind, not in my life. My project is a kennel management system. I have most of my tables created and related the way I think they should be. However, I'm very confused when it comes to setting up for payments and deposits. I specifically can't see for sure how to do the deposits. Like a people hotel, a deposit is taken for peak times. It is then applied to the invoice at check out. I have charges related to Payments via a table called Payments_applied since multiple types of payments might be made (i.e. maybe some cash and some credit card). I have the deposits related to the Reservation. I have a field on the charges table that's a calc to show all deposits taken for the Reservation. The payment then would be the difference. Does this sound right? It does to me but I'm not a pro yet! I've attached my relationship graph to help. Thanks for any help! Relationships.pdf

Thanks to you both, CoziMan and Soren. I'm sure I can get it if I just think it through. I'm trying to get a prototype you could say together to get approval for the bigger project. It needs to be a little functional to show off the ideas I have and to show that I can do it. I have found great information here. A while ago, I read how to do a conditional lookup. I had in idea how to do it and was glad to find out that I wasn't far off. Thanks again. -Brian

Hi, I am working on a solution for the pet hotel I work at and am confused at setting up part of the relationships. First let me explain what I am trying to do. Then, I'll explain what I've done so far. The solution is designed so that it has Pets related to Clients. You can then add a Reservation for any of the Pets. For each Reservation, a Pet can be scheduled for various Activities throughout their stay (like walks and playtimes). At check-in, Charges are created based on the days of the Reservation and Activities added. At Check-Out, an Invoice is printed. Here's what I have. Pets are related to Clients. Reservations are related to Pets. Activities are related to Reservations and are also attached to a separate table with the names of the Activities (so the Activities names can easily be changed/added to later). Charges are related to Reservations. Charges would include line items for non-Activity services/products. Graphically it could be written: Clients->Pets->Reservations->Activities->Charges Looking at it, I know this should work but I can't figure out how for sure I can add the charges for the Activities based on what is on the Reservation. The hard part (for me) is knowing that each Activity might not be every day-it might be every other day or even every 3 days. I am looking to print a report for each Activity each day. Add this to how I want it to look on screen and I'm very confused! Hopefully this is clear enough. I've tried to do as much on my own (and by reading this awesome forum!) but I'm stuck. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance! Brian

Hi, I've been lurking in the forum for a bit now and have found quite a bit of great information. I guess before I ask for help, I should let you know who I am. I'm relatively new to the FileMaker world and am trying to build my first DB designed possibly to distribute as a runtime. In the very near future, I hope to build a client datebase for the pet hotel I work at. Over the last 9 months or so, I've taken an Intro, Intermediate, and Advanced FM class. OK, now my question. How common is it to use Custom Menus? The teacher I had for my classes-a FM7 Certified Developer-did teach it but I got the idea that either he didn't care as much for it or maybe it wasn't that common to use. Any help would be great. On a similar note, is it common to use tab controls in layouts? Again, my teacher touched upon it but showed how he preferred to use buttons to navigate. Thanks for any suggestions! Brian

Hi, I read through this thread with great interest. I have been wondering about a Zip code file for a solution I've been working on. Rather than have a large file of Zip codes, I'd rather have a small one that is added to "on the fly" if necessary. In other words, if a user enters a Zip code not already entered, he/she would have to complete the City and State. If the Zip Code was already entered, it would do a lookup for the City and State. I know having a user enter could mean bad data, though. Which is better? This is for a pet hotel and most of our clients are fairly local. Is it ok to have table with the 40K records of Zip codes? Thanks! I have learned a huge amount reading this forum.