Help w/ report needed

[fleecy]

Hi!

FileMaker 7, OS X 10.3.

I'm new to complex FMP databases.

I'm working on a project management solution for my company; it will replace a very heavy Excel file that takes 5-10 minutes to calculate, even when it's empty.

I have a projects table, another one for phases and a trio of tables that contain detailed expenses related to each project and phase. The first table is for budget figures, the second keeps track of engaged expenses (for daily expense tracking) and the third is set to import data from the accounting department (to get final numbers).

These expenses need to be coded according to their type (4405 for post-production fees, 6208 for cell phone charges, and so on). I created a table detailing these, along with a second table that lists main expense categories (so that expenses coded 4401, 4402 or 4405 are grouped together).

My goal is to compare data from those 3 tables in a single report-style layout, summarize these comparisons by project, phase and expense category. I don't want to see individual expenses, only subtotals by expense category (determined automatically when we choose an expense code).

I tried a few options, namely using portals (I could only get those to display totals for all expenses, instead of subcategorizing them by expense type) and using a labels-style layout from my phases table to display a fixed portal connecting to my expense type table (and it again only showed grand totals).

Is this a layout problem, or a calculation issue?

Thank you for all the help you can give me!

[fleecy]

I'm answering myself here, but I think I found a workaround. I'll simply merge all three tables in one and use three different fields to differenciate the three types of data that need comparing.

Thanks you for reading!