actually tableA would be used in conjuction with tableC and tableD.

generally, the multiple scans that I had would take the credit information and substr the invoice number from the credit description. then it would scan tableC. if it were not in tableC it would scan tableD. if it found the invoice in tableD, the system then would seek if anyone one of the item codes in tableA was attached to any of the multiple listings of original invoice numbers in tableD

>OK, so how does tableA join to any other table if none of the others have Item_code in them? How does Fox know which record in tableB is supposed to be combined with a record in TableA? Your problem seems to be that Item_code is ONLY in tableA and not in any of the other tables you are trying to process.