I want to have a form that will not go to a new record unless specific data is inputed. i.e. if the date field has no data showing a message would inform user that data is required.

In your table design, set the 'required' property to 'yes'.

You could put something in the BeforeUpdate event of the form that would check for the blank field and then produce a msgbox. Something like

If IsNull(me.yourtxtboxname)or Len(yourtxtboxname)=0 Then
Msgbox "Enter a date!"
Else....
End if