redundancy in tables

[polymatt]

In my database, I have a Table for our clients (tbl_Clients) & how long they were active with our service (StartDate, EndDate), with each client tethered to an ID.

My dilemma is: what if a client reactivates? I want to avoid redundant records, & instead detail additional StartDates & EndDates as necessary; is there a way I can do this within the existing Table?

Thank you, preemptively, for your advice.

 

[AccessMSSQL]

It depends on if you care to maintain the history of your client subscription status. If you don't care about the history then just re-activate the current record and change the start and end date. Otherewise, create a Client Subscription History Table with the following fields:
ClientHistoryID (autonumber)
ClientID (join this to your ID table in tbl_Clients)
StartDate
EndDate

When you inactivate a client subscription - write the startdate (stored from the client table) and the current end date to the history table. If they get re-activated at some later date you won't need to do anything until it gets inactivated again. You can use that data to generate reports to show each clients subscription history.