I've never heard of any problems inserting a negative value into a numeric data type. Will you please ask your DBA to provide some more information?

I did some simple testing and I can't cause any type of error. I created a table in the pubs database ...

CREATE TABLE mike (c numeric(7,2))

Then I inserted two rows ...

insert into mike values (1)
insert into mike values (-1)

When I query the table I get both value back with no errors. I then tried it from VFP through both SPT and a remote view. I was able to enter four new rows, three with negative values, without any error.

What information are you getting from AERROR() when you get your update conflict?

-Mike