>Or is there a better way?
Bret,

First using alltrim in a select statement is begging for trouble. SELCT sets the size of the field in the result set according to the first value it finds, if that first value is 2 chars wide then the entire field will be set to 2 chars. It would be better to simply use the STR() of the numeric and let it go at taht.

As for numbers in a combo box I have never encountered a reason to use them as I want my comboas to show people stuff they can understand and the numbers are usually in column two of the combo's list and are not bound or displayed. I just use;

THIS.List(THIS.ListIndex,2) to find out what the number is.