Segmenting Serial Numbers

[Slainte]

Hi everyone,

I'm an extreme novice to FileMaker Pro, and I'd like to get some help from any of you here about serial numbers.

Basically, mgmt handed me a database to work on, and everything has been okay thanks to this FM Pro Bible book. However, I have a problem I can't solve now with auto serial numbers. I was able to create an invoice record number with this auto serial number feature for the three companies I deal with, but I've now been told I have to segment my invoice record numbers by company. (I guess the most layman terms example is that instead of records 1 - 60, mgmt now wants to see company A have invoice 1 - 20, B have 21 - 40, and C have 41 - 60.)

Basically, I thought an if / elseif statement with serialincrements would work; it didn't. Then I tried a case and choose statement. Oh, I also tried using this global storage option, but could never figure out what to do. Through all this, I got one of these statements to work, but my problem was that all three co.'s had the same number 1 - 20. I couldn't really figure out how to get the auto area to segment the starting numbers to the other companies.

Can anyone out there help me solve this problem?

--Kristine

[Osman]

Hi Kristine,

If I understand your question clearly you want to add prefix to serial numbers which indicate company.

You can solve this problem by merging two fields. First one is customer id or customer number field in customer table and the second one is serial number field in invoice table. (I assume that you have tables invoices and customers)

Adam Djuby

[Slainte]

Adam,

Hi, I just checked FM Pro Help about merging fields, and I don't think that will help. Basically, what happened is that I would just create a new record--which would create a new invoice#--everytime a company would pass info down to me with auto serial. I still have to use auto serial numbers, but the thing is I have to segment the auto serial numbers into groups, now. The company field and the invoice# field are on the same table, and I'm experimenting with the notion of creating a popup-list field for the company field.

--Kristine

[RalphL]

This idea of segmenting invoice numbers may not be as neat as it sounds. Has this idea been passed by the accounting and legal departments. Missing invoice numbers can be a problem at tax time.

[Slainte]

Yes, unfortunately

[esegal]

Check out this thread.

http://www.fmforums.com/forum/showtopic.php?tid/169939/post/176193/hl//

I modified the Nightwing script to fit my db and it works, however I am having a problem in that I only need the serial in one record_type, so if I reference the same company in another record_type, it advances one serial number even though I don't want it to, so when I go back to the record_type that uses the serial number it appears to "skip" one. I am trying to find a solution to that. If you only have one record type in your db this will work okay.