Hi, very new to Access and wanted to check something was possible before i proceed with it,

basically i want to assign a reference number to my records automatically based on data that has been entered by the user, looking something like this

AE/13MAY07/01

AE is a standard thing and will never change.

13MAY07 is 13th May 2007, which is a date which has been entered by the user for when a specific piece of work is to start. There will be a Yes/No box next to where they enter the date saying whether or not they want a new reference number assigned. If they select Yes, the reference number will be populated with the date specified.

01 will be a number which goes up in increments of 1 based on the MAY07 detail. The number will start at 01 for every month/year, eg

MAY07/01
MAY07/02

JUN07/01
JUN07/02

MAY08/01
MAY08/02

Hope someone can understand what im trying to do and can help.

Thanks in advance :)

This kind of thing comes up all the time (probably why no one has answered). Searching for "custom autonumber" should turn up threads on the subject.