I need a field that auto increments. My problems are it also needs to have a prefix of "541-", and there is already an existing record (on paper) so i cannot start from 0. I have tried using format and max (field) + 1 but I can't get those to work properly. Any help?

ff,

You want the DMax function. There are a lot of posts here as it is quite a
common problem.

Use the Search here for --> DMax

Or, post what you currently have.

Wayne

thanks, will read up on that. :)