Good point. That is one of the differences between VFP8 and oracle. But that unfortunatly that did not resolve this. I made the folowing changes and I still get the same error:

SELECT recordtype, importaccountid, DTOS({06/04/2003}) AS postdate, ;
effectivedate, transactiontype, dbcr, ;
SUM(IIF(dbcr = 'C', -1 * VAL(amount), VAL(amount))) AS amount, ;
ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, PADR(ALLTRIM(details),40) AS details, ;
scvind, name, company, phone, SPACE(20) AS email, SPACE(15) AS fax, ;
property, address1, address2, city, state, filler, zip, country, ;
filler2 ;
FROM cwtsdata ;
GROUP BY recordtype, importaccountid, postdate, effectivedate, ;
transactiontype, dbcr, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ;
details, scvind, name, company, phone, email, ;
fax, property, address1, address2, city, state, filler, zip, ;
country, filler2 ;
INTO CURSOR CashwiseTerminalServicesData