>Naomi - Your version errors with a message that says queries of this type are not supported.
>
>After thinking about this some more I realized I don't really need anything from the parent table. Everything I need can be had from the child table. Just 3 fields CUSTID, _YEAR, and AMOUNT, where I select only the most recent year. This should simplify it a bit. It should look something like:
>

>select custid, max(_year), amount ;
>from orders ;
>group by custid 
>

>
>This seems to work with the first 2 fields but fails when I add the third even when I tweak the GROUP BY clause.

The TOP 1 version doesn't work in VFP, unfortunately.

This works fine:

* Test data
CREATE CURSOR Customers (CustNo int, CustomerName C(100))
INSERT INTO Customers VALUES (1,'Cust1')
INSERT INTO Customers VALUES (2,'Cust2')

CREATE CURSOR Orders (OrderID int , CustNo int, Amount N(10,2), OrderDate date)
INSERT INTO Orders VALUES (1, 1, 10, DATE() - 10)
INSERT INTO Orders VALUES (2, 1, 100, DATE())
INSERT INTO Orders VALUES (3, 2, 100, DATE() - 5)
INSERT INTO Orders VALUES (4, 2, 1020, DATE())

* Subquery solution
select Cust.*, Ord.Amount, Ord.OrderDate from Customers Cust INNER JOIN Orders Ord on Cust.CustNo = Ord.CustNo ;
where Ord.OrderDate >= (select MAX(OrderDate) from Orders O where O.CustNo = Cust.CustNo)

* Packed value solution
select Cust.*, LO.LastDate, cast(RIGHT(LO.DateAmount,100) as N(12,4)) as Amount from Customers Cust ;
INNER JOIN (select CustNo, max(OrderDate) as LastDate, ;
max(cast(Orderdate as C(10)) + cast(Amount as C(100))) as DateAmount ;
from Orders group by CustNo) LO on Cust.CustNo = LO.CustNo

* derived tables solution
select Cust.*, LO.LastDate, O.Amount from Customers Cust ;
INNER JOIN (select CustNo, max(OrderDate) as LastDate ;
from Orders O group by CustNo) LO on Cust.CustNo = LO.CustNo ;
inner join Orders O on LO.CustNo = O.CustNo and LO.LastDate = O.OrderDate