>I needed to know the type of phone usage. That is the reason for field purtype ="L" or ="LD" or ="C". Your suggestion does not allow for that. The PH field (payment type) is a disbursement type. "Ph" can have one of the 3 purtype's for a single payment. That is the reason I thought purtype could be defined in the index. I am missing something by having a parent with a single index and a child with a muli-field index. Does that help clarify things. Thanks

If what you want to do is relate the 2 tables by the phone number with the child table being index on PH + PurType, you can do this with a SET RELATION TO PH INTO CHILDTABLE if Set Exact is OFF. The PH field has to be the same type and width in both tables. Or you could create an UPDATABLE view of the two tables and join them however you wish. You can even parameterize the view on the PurType field.

... [optional: Where Parent.Ph = ?lcPhone and] Child.PurType = ?lcPurType ...

All you have to do is set [optionally Parent.Ph] lcPurType = "L" [or "LD" or "C"], this issue REQUERY() on that view.