>the problem i have restructuring the rates table is that there are 800 areacodes
>and 20 rates so i would have to imput in manually 16000 records...?

Create a table and call it something like NewRates with the following structure:

KeyID
Code
Country
RateID
RateAmount

Run the following against the current Rates table:

select Rates
locate
scan
   for i = 3 to fcount()          && 3rd field is Rate1, etc,
       lnRate = eval(field(i))    && returns the actual value in the field
       insert into NewRates ( Code, Country, RateID, RateAmount) ;
          values ( Rates.Code, Rates.Country, i - 2, lnRate )
   endfor
endscan
select NewRates
replace all KeyID with RecNo()   && populate all the KeyID fields

When you add a new record, KeyID needs to be the next number from you Primary Key generator function. Once you verifyt the data in the NewRates table against the prior Rates table, you can delete the Rates table and rename the NewRates table to Rates.