problem?

[nicola1]

Hi all, i would appreciate it if someone would be able to help solve my problem. Basically i am reporting on sales which have happened over a year. The actual sales are recorded in a different place and im using access to report on trends and to produce statistics. Basically my users enter into one table the Total sales which were made each month, late deliveries etc... i want to be able to pull the data out of this table for a specific period of time [i know how to set a time period] and for it to pull out all the data. For example if i said from sept 04 to jan 05 it would automatically calculate all of the sales from all of the months which happened in this period of time and the same for all of the late deliveries etc...instead of bringing the data across monthly as they are first recorded...i was them all added up to a sum...any help would be appreciated

 

[richary]

Everything you describe is easily done in Access. Have you looked at using parameter queries and reports?

 

[nicola1]

what is a parameter query? I have taught myself a lot of new things in access so far...using many queries and reports, ive been playing around with access to find a solution for this...i think i just need a point in the right direction and then should be able to work it out for myself...thank you

 

[richary]

A parameter query allows the user to enter a value via a dialog box as a criteria to select a group of records to use, say, in a report, rather than "hard-coding" the criteria in SQL.

To get you started, in the query design view, in order to select sales records made on a particular date, in the criteria line for "SalesDate" you enter some text in square brackets. When you run the query, Access then displays a small dialog box with the text you just specified and then uses that to select the records.

If you enter "paramter query" into access help, you'll find quite a bit of information, both on how to specify criteria (eg date ranges) and parameter queries themselves.

 

[nicola1]

oh right..i didnt know that they were called that. I have done that date parameter for several forms and reports already. The thing im unsure of is how to convert the data which is entered monthly, lets say

January :2
February:3
March:5
"
"
"

As a total

Total number of sales:10

 

[neileg]

You can do this in the query, or you can show all the details in a form or report and add a total there. To get the query to do it, you need to change the select query you have written into a totals query. In the query grid, press the Σ button which adds a totals line. In your sales column, change the Group By to Sum