ok that seems logical.... but
I have tried things out with outer joins.
It still doesnt seem to be working properly.
basicaly... the customer will have many jobs and in those jobs will have many invoices and for those invoices they will have many payments. we only worry about 1 customer at a time.
this can get messy.
I am not worried about the jobs that part is transparent.. I want to take a customer number which will point to those jobs which points to the invoices.. this is not a problem... if a customer has no invoices in any jobs then it can display nothing.. if they have invoies it will display them.
but.... once I add in the payments thing things get messed up.... if the customer has never made a payment on an invocie it will not display that invoice.. this would be pointless because if they pay in full we no longer care about it but we still wish to see it... an invocie that has no payment on it would be much better to see because then you can enter it into the system.
perhaps I am just confused about all this but who knows... any other tips you can give will be appreciated.

thanks in advance