I am working on a query where I have two selection criteria that affect each other. The first one (field: "accnum") excludes all string values that begin with the "US" while the second one (field: "desc") keeps all values that contain string "MONTHLY". I need to tell Access to "force" the first criteria before applying the second one (heh, but I don't know how).

In the sample attached, please note that there are 3 entries that couldn't be removed from the list:
date accnum amount desc
05/30/08 US-F15 -1500 GJ009642 MONTHLY MANUAL US PROGRAM ACCRUAL - MAY 2
05/30/08 US-F15 -625 GJ009642 MONTHLY MANUAL US PROGRAM ACCRUAL - MAY 2
03/31/08 US-F15 -2125 GJ009439 MONTHLY MANUAL ACCRUALS - MARCH 2008 - US

Is there any way to resolve this?
Thank you for any suggestions.
Peter

You never mentioned Invoice I had to delete my 1st reply after I decided to check your sample , why waste peoples time with an incomplete story.
You also need to put <>"US" on the second criteria row

Brian

Putting the second <>"US" worked well.
Thank you very much, Mr. Brianwarnock for your effort in helping me. As well, sorry about not being clear at the first place.
Peter

Ok Peter,
for your Info if you were writing the SQL you would write
WHERE (Mid([CDN]![accnum],1,2)<>"US" ) AND ((Mid([CDN]![desc],1,4)="Invo") OR (Mid([CDN]![desc],10,7)="MONTHLY"));
but you must make sure that the ( ) is correct.

but doing it via the design grid you always end up with the construct

(<>"US" and ="INVO") OR (<>"US" and ="MONTHLY")

both work but I guess that the first was what you were thinking of.

Brian

I work in both of them, depending of complexity. You are right; both statements are correct and work for me!
All the best to you!