All records from the master table that matches the conditions in the WHERE clause will appear in a SELECT-SQL with a LEFT OUTER JOIN clause.

Again, can you give me the structure of your tables and some records in them? Like:

InvMaster.DBF
=============
Part# Description
----- -----------
001   Monitor
002   Speakers

OnHand.DBF
==========
Part# Quantity
----- --------
001   2

>Well that gives me the sum, no problem, but my problem is that I'm not stating my problem very well;)
>
>Here it goes one more time:) I guess what I'm really looking for is to pull all parts from the inventory master that match whole/part of a part number the user enters...then pull the amount on hand from the Inventory Onhand table that match the location(also specified by user), if nothing matches then onhand=0.
>
>Perhaps I shouldn't be using a SELECT-SQL statement...the reason why I tried in the first place was that I thought that if I used a right/left join that ALL the records from the Master would be included and then only fields from records that matched from the Child would be included, all else would be .null. or something like that....oh well, I was hoping...
>
>Now the question is: What's the best way for me to accomplish the above task?:)