I'm new to the world of FileMaker and have plodded along pretty well so far. i could use some help on one issue though.

I have an inventory db setup and would like to calculate the cost, for example, of all furniture items purchased in a certain timeframe. I created a calculation field and have it set to =Sum(CostValue). However, when I run a find with a date parameter it only gives me the individual inventory item cost, and not a sum of all of them.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Also, I should note that my goal is to generate a report for a particular fiscal yar that detailes that totals for each category of inventory in my db.

For example:

Printers - 2500

Computers - 5000

Furniture - 1200

This is where I start to lose it and can't logically see what to do.

I'd suggest a columnar report with sub-summary parts. Use a Sub-Summary by Category part with the Category field and a Total summary field. You can either find for a specific date range (or fiscal year) or use a sub-summary part to group items together by fiscal year.