We would like to go ahead and start using serial control for our products.  Using a simple example, I have a  few questions hopefully someone could respond to:  
   
We have previously built and shipped five red wagons, serial number 1 thru 5.  We are going to create another work order to build 5 more wagons, serial # 6 thru 10, and ship all those through one sales order.    
   
I think I understand how to correctly use serial # 6 thru 10  in regard to entering work order finished production and releasing/posting sales order invoices. My concern, in this example, is more with serial # 1 thru 5:  
   
1) First, it seems OK that I can go ahead and under the wagon item number, pre-enter serial # 6-10 thru DBA menu SC-A (or serial # up to, lets say, 100, if I wanted to).  Is this practice indeed OK?  
2) It also appears from looking at SC-A, I can enter serial # 1-5 (the five units previously built) and enter the work order number, date received (enter finished production date, I presume) and work order unit cost.  Is this OK too?  
3) If entering serial # for  previously built and shipped wagons is OK, how do I tie those first five # to the invoice number under which those five shipped?  Searching through the SERIAL and BKARINV files, I dont see where the serial number ties to the invoice number.  
4) Any general advice/precautions in regard to using serial number control?  
   
Thanks!  
Mike  

Unless of course you want to enter the records manually in Maintain Database for those tables.  But this should only be done by someone VERY confident about how to use MDb.  And you should make a copy of the tables BEFORE you begin

What version are you on?  I Know there were some recent bug fixes relating to Serial Control.

There is an SP to 2002.4 both on the www.istechsupport.com site and the DBA site that shuold help the invoice posting problem with the loop.
 
As for the history, if all you want is to be able to run SC-D to see what invoice a serialized item shipped out on and when, you need only populate the INVTXN file with part number, date, transaction type (S), serial number, invoice number and cost.  However, if that invoice number is from your system prior to DBA, you wuold then need to go to that system to see who that invoice belonged to.

Good question Lorne,
 
Well, the reasons:
1) Not being familiar w/ either Access or Crystal at the time our company decided we needed  better data output format from DBA (which was about this time last year), I took beginning courses in both.  I found Crystal as a whole to be considerably more logical in design and ease-of-use.  (It appears that w/ many small businesses that have used both Access and Crystal, many tend to fall decidely in one of the two groups).  
 
2)Cost really wasn't a factor-we paid $500 for the one Professional Version license, which is one my desktop.  I create and update the reports and export them in Excel format to our network.  (We are very much a spreadsheet-orientated company).
 
3)Im sure, as a true database, Access has a few more tricks up its sleeve than Crystal.  I just never really warmed up to Access, but I think Crystal is the greatest thing since sliced bread.  Whatever Crystal can't cover in regard to calculations and such, I just covered that w/ automatically-run macros in Excel.
 
Mike