Our current Filemaker version is 6.0

with one database called course, under which there is one repetition
filed for instructors list.

Our current process is: the instructor will submit one invoice, on
which it includes several courses he/she teach. One person will create
one spreadsheet for each invoice. At the end of the day, she will
create one or several payroll form on which shows how many each
instructor should be paid based on the invoices input.

I think this can not be done in the original course.

so I think it would be better to creat another database called Invoice,
each new record is one Invoice entry, and invoice entries on the same
invoice are linked together with Invoice Number. and invoice entries
with the same "create date" are put on the same payroll form.

This is what I am thinking about. Any improvement or suggestion? Thanks
a lot.

All should be done in FileMaker.
You should have something looking like that :
'Permanent' Files :
- a 'Courses' file with one record per course, with fields like
'CourseID', 'Course Name', 'Location', 'date start', 'date end', hours
etc. They are quasi static. No mention of the course instructor there.
- a 'Instructors' file : each record has his ID, his Name etc., ie
anything that pertains to this particular instructor.
'Details' files :
- a 'Cour_Instr' file with one record per couple course-instructor, with
2 basic fields : 'CourseID' and 'InstructorID', plus anything relative
to that course done by that instructor, like 'InvoiceID', 'price
requested for that course by that instructor', 'remarks' ...
- an 'Invoices' file with one record per invoice sent by instructors.
Fields are 'InvoiceID', 'Date made', 'date received', 'total amount',
'date paid', 'PaymentID', ...
- a 'Payments' file with one record per actual Payment, with fields like
'PaymentID', 'total paid', etc.
- a 'PaymtDetails' file with one record per couple invoice-payment,
fields are 'PaymentID', 'InvoiceID', etc.
The rest is simply a question of relationships between the files based
on links with the IDs, layouts for entering data - in whatever file -
layouts for printing data, appropriate scripts, etc.
Advice : enter data in the 'lowest detail' files, and print data the
same.
Well : it's the whole design of an integrated application you are asking
there...
Remi-Noel


"Yoyo" <pengxian (AT) gmail (DOT) com> a écrit dans le message de news:
1133971473.981766.107590 (AT) g44g20...oglegroups.com...

Thanks a lot for your reply.
As the actual invoice, it's possible that the instructor will write
down several courses, so in the real design, it should be like one
record per line on the invoice.

Remi-Noel Menegaux wrote:

Yes, then you need another file 'InvoicesDetails', with one record per
couple "InvoiceID' - 'CourseID'. Of course the 'Invoices' file will
contain also on each record, not only the 'InvoiceID' but also the
'InstructorID'.
You may do the basic job, ie create all the files and their
relationships the best you can, and send me the whole thing privately.
Remi-Noel

"Yoyo" <pengxian (AT) gmail (DOT) com> a écrit dans le message de news:
1134054742.828392.160200 (AT) g14g20...oglegroups.com...
Thanks a lot for your reply.
As the actual invoice, it's possible that the instructor will write
down several courses, so in the real design, it should be like one
record per line on the invoice.

Remi-Noel Menegaux wrote: