two questions; I want to create a databse to link a contact book of customers and suppliers, a list of staff in the company and invoicing/stock management. I have however run into a few problems. How do I go about automating certain fields in a report. For example I want to create an invoice to a customer for whatever goods but I don't want to fill out the customers full details, just they're name/reference number. Then use drop down menues to add items to the invoice. How do I go about making access automatically select the information that I don't enter (ideally I would like to be able to enter any piece of information like, name, sir name, company name, reference number and have access fill in the rest).

A second question, I am wanting to host this on my company server running Windows 2003 enterprise edition. Would I do better doing the shole thing in SQL server and if so can somebody tell me what server and workstation software I need.

Thanks

1. I would use a query as the RecordSource for the Invoice. The query would join the necessary tables so that all required fields are available. To see examples of how this is accomplished, look at http://www.access-programmers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=293920#post293920

2. Access makes a fine front-end for a SQL server db. SQL server isn't a development environment the way Access is. SQL server is the equivilent of Jet. Alternatives to Access abound - VB, C++, Java, etc. but all other options require REAL programmers.