Newbie requires all the help he can get

[GadgetDiver]

Hello Everyone, Im new here & would greatly appreciate some help.

I am in sales, not a programmer or IT pro. I have created some basic access databases that have been a great help. However now I want to go to the next level I realise that my knowledge is still quite basic.

Allow me give you a basic outline. I manufacture labels for a variety of companies. I wish to uniquely identify a label size / design to a customer & record the number of times it has been ordered.

Question 1

I have a customer name & wish to assign a code to it.
i.e. “Caterpillar” is the company name & “CAT” will be my reference code.

Caterpillar takes 3 different label sizes from me, so I would like to have a 4 digit sequential number after the code.
i.e.
CAT 0001 = 3” x 2” Label
CAT 0002 = 4” x 2” Label
CAT 0003 = 6” x 4” Label

When Caterpillar takes a new label from me, I would like to go to my database and say new label, select the customer & it automatically assign the next available number. i.e. CAT 0004.

Question 2

Now that I have (hopefully) achieved the above, I would like to assign a job number to the first part of the code. Taking the above codes as an example, the first time I manufacture “CAT 0001” I would like a 4 digit code inserting onto the back which would indicate it is the first time for manufacture. The code would therefore look like “CAT 0001 – 0001”. Next time the customer orders the same label, from a form I would select repeat job, select the customer & select “CAT 0001”. This system would then automatically assign the next sequential number knowing that 0001 has been used.
i.e. “CAT 0001 – 0002”.

Does all this make sense?

I would appreciate any assistance you could offer.

Thank you in advance.

Gadgetdiver

 

[Fifty2One]

Do a search for Sequential Numbers, there have been many variants of this idea posted that work.