>I have a application that the user needs to store their records in the same excel file. Is there a way to just appen records to excel?

You can use Excel's automation server to manipulate Excel worksheets to your heart's content; it's the best bet in this situation, where you don't know the ultimate size of the Excel sheet (VFP runs into trouble creating XLS files with >16K recs) and the automation engine can work with spreadsheets that are other than simple tabular layouts; manipulating XLS files with > 1 worksheet in them, or that have formulas, etc.

If you're unsure about how to manipulate the Excel automation model, there have nbeen lots of articles in FoxTalk and FPA on it, and there's a book out on using the Office Automation services in VFP by Della Martin and Tamar Granor from Hentzenwerke Publishing which might help (it doesn't deal with the really difficult issues of automation, but covers the basic issues of Office Automation for VFP.)

Time to put our tax dollars to work in a useful way...