I am creating a database to track items on purchase orders. Each purchase order we receive from our customers can include products from any of twenty different suppliers. We must place orders to each of our suppliers for these products. I need to find a method in which, after entering the purchase order in the database, each product in the purchase order would be copied to a page specific to only that company (so that we can then use this page to place our order to that particular supplier). For example, if a purchase order contains products from companies #1, #2, and #3, I need to have all items for company #1 copied to a particular page, all items for company #2 copied to another page, and so on. The end result would be a page for all products we need to order from company #1, another page for all products for company #2, and so on. I will designate a unique ID number to each of our suppliers. Any ideas how to do this (or examples) greatly appreciated.

Thank You.

This is off the top of my head, and at 2:00a.m., so...

Create a "Suppliers" file that relates to Purchases (that's the line items file) by supplier name [N.B.: If you enter the supplier manually when creating a purchsae line item, use the list of suppliers from the Suppliers file as your pop-up list when creating a purchase].

On a layout in Suppliers, create a sub-summary part, so you can print out (or see in Preview mode) whatever you are sorting on. Ideally, you'd probably want two separate layouts, each with a sub-summary part -- sorted by supplier (and "sub-sorted" by PO#) and by purchase order number (sub-sorted by supplier, maybe?). That way, you can see the data either way.

OK, that's the quick answer; it should give you an idea of how to proceed.

The key here is how you organize the file(s) for the received purchase order. If you use two files for the received purchase order "CustOrder" and "LineItems", what you want to do will be easy. If fact, using this approach you could add a third file to automatically create purchase orders to your suppliers (that's why I like to use the name Customer Orders, they are "purchase" orders to your customer, "customer orders" to you.)

In CustOrders each record represents one Customer Purchase Order. In LineItems each record is an item from a Customer Purchase Order. Display the contents of the line item file in a portal in CustOrders using a relationship based upon a CustOrders file field "record number" which is auto entered and can't be modified. Don't use the customer's order number for this, they may duplicate across different customers.

To print your report, use the LineItems file and sort and summarize by vendor.

-bd