>Alejandro,

(snip)
> Better to recalculate than to have an incorrect number.

Amen to better slow than wrong. I believe we can avoid that kind of errors in this case.

>Hillmar mentioned 5th form. Again from memory it seems that when there is more than 1 table involved (as is your case) then it (5th) may be applicable. Not that I think you should go there by any means.

Started reading about 5NF. Actually, my first impression is that this is not our case.


Aside from the speed of summing issue, the second problem is our constant need to create reports which show in one line totals for different kinds of income, for example regular pay and overtime pay. That is the origin of the need to keep both in a single record.

Of course, we would keep in the detail table how much overtime is paid at each of the overtime rates. BTW, in Panama we have over 27 overtime rates.

All comments are welcome.

Thank you,

Alex