report totals trouble

  • Thread starter Thread starter Carla H.
  • Start date Start date
C

Carla H.

I am working on a database for a charity auction. The
database is made up of four tables: Guests, Silent Bid
Items, Oral Bid Items, and Misc. (for food and drinks).
The receipt for the evening is a report made up of
multiple sub reports. The receipt (report) shows the name
of the guest, has a list of silent items purchased, oral
items purchased, miscellaneous and totals. Not everyone
will purchase items in one or both categories (silent or
oral bid items). When that happens, the receipt totals do
not work because some data is missing. In the past, they
ran a query to find customers who did not purchase in one
or more categories and manually went in and entered
zero's for each customer who didn't make a purchase.

How can I get a zero entered into the record for both
categories without having to run a query to find guests
who didn't purchase, and then manually enter the numbers?
So far I've tried using a form with sub forms from the
silent and oral items tables to enter zeros. No luck.
TIA!
 
Carla,

The first thing to explore is this... Is the structure of this
database set in concrete, or is it possible to consider a change to
your table design? You have fallen into what is sometimes known as
the "tables as data" trap, as a result of which your database is more
difficult and complicated than it needs to be.

- Steve Schapel, Microsoft Access MVP
 
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