Hi Paul

>normalization, eh? i'll look into it. I have done this with a number of other tables, but cannot still see, with your example, how someone entering data into a form would not have to make three separate entries (based on my example), one for each service id. they would select the service from a drop-down, and then enter the amount, and then save it to the table. then they would have to do the same thing for the other two services with charges. Any way around this?
>
Sure there are ways around it. One way is the barcode scanner. It lets the user enter all the different products and combined with a database, picks up the price for the product. You could have a service code that the user's enter/pick and provide the standard price for that service.

The user in your example would still have to tab over and enter the price. There's no point trying to avoid it.