Transition from mySQL to Filemaker Help Pleezzee

[wad]

I am but a newbie and have tried to read up on everything I can but alas I am a bit loist on a couple of items in filemaker 8:

First off I am using regular filemaker 8 not advanced(not sure why there are 2 differnt versions)

anyhow I have created a table to import data into and it is working great, I have some serial fields, some calculated field and some summary fields.

Here is the schema:

sales_data::

sd_id -> serial autonum

creation_date -> the date the record is imported

data_date -> the date in the original text file

postal -> postal code

store_num -> store number

category -> also a field in the original text file

business_account -> text file field

transactions -> number of trans in text file field

sales _> sale amount for the record in the text file field

FSA -> forward sort area, caled as first 3 chars of postal

Transaction Summary -> summary of transaction field

Sales summary -> summary of sales field

I also have a couple of other tables that I created to assist with finds and reporting:

city::

city_name -> text

city_id -> auto serial

Region::

region_name ->name of region

region_id -> serial

District::

disctrict_name -> name

disctrict_id -> serial

Store:

store_num -> number of store

Store_dist -> chosen from district

store_city -> chosen from city

store_region -> chosen from region

This gives me a way to import my data from a text file(this is excellent I only wish I could do this in mySQL/PHP)

It also gives me a way to create stores with region, city and district info

What I cannot figure out how to do is take the imported data and: Sort, View and Export to pdf/excel by:

Dates(range):

Store by FSA, Total Transactions and Total Sales

Store by postal, Total Transactions and Total Sales

also by :

Dates(range):

categories by FSA and total Trans

category by postal total tranascations

I am an experienced sql developer that could write a set of sql scripts that SELECT from where order by statements that could do this in a snap, the problem here is I cannot seem to translate these sql statements into FIlemaker scripts/layouts.

Am I missing something or is this just not possible?

Please help, I am interested in Filemaker but so far it seems to be very limited in function, I hate to call it an in-between from a spreadsheet and a simple integrated db/app layer but it seems as though I cannot get this reporting working with the menus provided.

Thanks in advance, and I hope by writing this long description it will help another.