I have set up a form with check boxes in when I select them and close the form, they are not still selected the next time I open the same form.

Why?????

Sounds like you don't have your checkboxes bound to controlsource.

I don't know a lot about this, how & why do they need to be bound to a control source?

Forms do not have the ability to "hold" data. Only tables hold data permanently. Forms are ment to view or update data contained in tables. Bound forms (those that use a query or table as their recordsource), may contain bound controls (those that refer to a column in the form's recordsource as their controlsource). You can think of the bound form and bound controls as a "passthrough" to the underlying table where the data is actually held. If a control is not bound to the form's recordsource, there is no where for Access to save the data so it just goes away when the form is closed.