Unfortunately, Microsoft Access doesn't seem to allow very much flexibility
when it comes to autonumbering. Fortunately, you can manually get around
this. If you're careful.
If you want to start with permit number 2556635, you're going to need to
make 2556634 other records first. Which of course sounds like a pain in the
ass, and don't fool yourself - that's exactly what it is. But if you're
diligant, you might be able to manually type out that many empty records in
oh, say half a month. You could, however, do a bit of copying and pasting to
get up to that number.
Create a new table, and create a column of type Autonumber. You'll need a
second column just to type in a random bit of data to get this started (since
you can't create an entry if the only field is an autonumber). Save the
design and in the datasheet view create a few nonsensicle records. You can
delete the second column at this point if you'd like. Probably a good idea
since we don't want 2556634 extra entries.
Then comes the busy work. Select all of the records by pressing CTRL-A,
copy them with CTRL-C, click on the Last Record button in the record
navigation on the ottom, right-click on the asterix for the bottom column
(the one used for adding new entries), and then paste. Click yes, and you
will have double the number of entries you started with. In a matter of a
few minutes, with such wild exponential growth, you can reach whatever number
you want rather quickly.
Of course, the problem with this is that you might.... overshoot. Do the
math and figure out what half of your target number is, and stop pasting when
you reach that number. You'll have to be careful with your final pastes in
order to get the number you want, but a little bit of thinking will put you
on the dime. Once you reach that target (or at least, one below the target),
you can delete all of the records that you used as placeholders. Autonumber
does not re-use it's numbers, so it will not revert back to 1.
Keep in mind that since autonumber does not re-use any numbers, deleting a
permit will cause that number to be lost forever. Instead of deleting
records, you should consider flagging them with a check box or something
similar, and them filtering them out of searches.
Hope that helps!
Nick