>>>David,
>>>
>>>Here's what I did. Create a report, in it place a field and then a second one the is below and to the right of the first. I created two variables in the command window, lcLastCust (last customer ID) and llNewCust (T/F is this a new customer).
>
>
>Note the bolded text above, the vars are created to be visible to both the report and the UDF. The UDF simply sets the logical, there was a typo the else should set it to .T.
>
>The return of lcRet is simply to cause a verification of the cust_id to be printed on the report for testing purposes. If all I neede was the llNewCust flag set, then I would return "" from the UDF faithfully printing nothing.

Ah so! But I'm fairly new to VFP and it's not clear to me where the UDF is defined so that the variables are within its scope when not running from the command window. Would these be private variables owned by the caller of the report generation file?