Business Customer/Invoice Problem

[Jredeemer14]

Hello, I have a situation where I have a Customer Table and Invoice table and I have them merged on a layout I call Sales Slips. I want to be able to add new customers to the customer tables, but if they are repeat buyers, I don't want to be typing their information again, because then I would have a duplicate entry. So.... I need a way to still add new customers, but at the same time have filemaker tell me if it is a repeat buyer so I can just use their information again for another invoice. I know this is probably hard to follow so let me know if something needs clarifying, otherwise any help would be appreciated, thanks - Jeff

[mr_vodka]

Perhaps you can have unique validation on a phone number or address field. Either that or you can script your new entries.

As for your invoice, you are using lookups for your customer info?

[Jredeemer14]

The Unique validation would work for telling me if I have a duplicate. Yet, I'm not sure how the lookups would help in the invoices, in fact I'm not even sure how they would work. Could you explain how I might use lookups to fix the problem. Thanks - Jeff

[mr_vodka]

Once you have your customer information in its own table, you should be able to use something like a customer ID or telephone number etc so that the rest of your customer info fields on the invoice are filled in automatically with the lookup feature.

Read up on Chapter 4 of FM9 User's guide for more on lookups.

[Jredeemer14]

I'm not sure I want the fields copied to the invoice table. I think I want some way to add new records to the customer table, yet at the same time Not add duplicates, using a lookup would just fill in fields. I tried doing something using a related record script, but no dice. Thanks for all your help, I think we are getting close.