Autonumber

[Guest]

Is there anyway to start an autonumber field at a specific number in Access XP?

 

[Allen Browne]

See:
Set AutoNumbers to start from ...
at:
http://allenbrowne.com/ser-26.html

 

[Joseph Meehan]

Is there anyway to start an autonumber field at a specific number in
Access XP?

I suggest you may not want to use Autonumber for that use. Autonumbers are
designed to provide unique numbers. It in not designed to provide numbers
in order and for a number of reasons may not do so. As a result using them
in any application where the user sees the numbers is likely to end up with
confusion.

There are other ways of providing the numbers you want depending on the
particual application.

 

[Guest]

How isn't it for that use? I am looking to do the same thing.
We have a database and want autonumber for quote numbers. Moving from paper
to database. We left off with quote number 897 on paper and need the database
to start off at 898 so there is not duplicate quotes from the paper.
If that's not what autonumber is for than Access should have something for
that. I followed Allans suggestion and it worked out great.

 

[Joseph Meehan]

How isn't it for that use? I am looking to do the same thing.
We have a database and want autonumber for quote numbers. Moving from
paper to database. We left off with quote number 897 on paper and
need the database to start off at 898 so there is not duplicate
quotes from the paper.
If that's not what autonumber is for than Access should have
something for that. I followed Allans suggestion and it worked out
great.

Autonumber is designed to provide unique numbers to records. It does
not guarantee that the numbers will be consecutive, nor does it provide a
convenient way of filling in the blanks or changing existing numbers.

If you are 100% sure that for your use, no one will have problems with
the fact that a number or a group of numbers may be skipped, and all you
need is a unique number, go ahead and use it. I will warn you that in real
life unless you are the only one looking at the data, you are going to find
quite a few people upset over the missing number.

Access has the autonumber feature built in primarily to proved unique
numbers for linking tables.

There are several was of providing consecutive numbers (as opposed the
unique numbers) and which one may work best in your situation depends on
your needs. Most use the DMax function to find the highest existing number
and then adds one to it.