>Hi,
>From previous experience, our client used to have ~45,000 of sales transactions permonth with ~145,000 records of lineitem.
>
>Do you meant doing "purging" every month?

Yes, more or less. Transferring to a "historical file" every month. Or perhaps every year or two. I think VFP can handle 1.8 or 3.6 million records without too much problems. As a matter of fact, you might just as well keep data for 5-10 years, without "purging". Access speed should be managable, especially with parameterized views. I suspect VFP can handle this - but it is convenient to do some speed tests for your specific situation.

You might consider a database server, but I believe there is really no hurry for this - you can take your time. If you are concerned about money, free, or almost free, alternatives to SQL Server exist - for instance, MySQL, PostGreSQL, FireBird.

Returning to the original suggestion, it would seem to me that keeping data for a year makes it more managable than separating by companies or regions. Purging old data might cause some trouble because of referential integrity, though - depending how your relations are set up.

Greetings,

Hilmar.