Take a close look at the chart above. It shows the four main databases within PrintSmith: Charges, History, Invoices, and Jobs and the Starting Record Number for each year we since we bought PrintSmith. These four databases will be used in almost every report you create. However, most reports only need a small chunk of data, so I created this spreadsheet to help me run reports faster. (Please note that these numbers apply to our shop only, not yours!!)

Speed is where the Starting Record Number becomes important. Suppose I only need the data from the History database for 2006. The report will run faster by choosing a Starting Record Number of 62,846. This ensures that I will only be using data created from 2006 forward, thus eliminating 62,845 records from the processing of my report!! (Otherwise, PrintSmith goes all the way back to 1998 and starts processing from Zero!!)

Keep in mind that these record numbers have nothing to do with your Invoice numbers, but are simply a consecutive number assigned to each record. I recommend that you create a chart like this for your company by using the Downloader Browse function to find the record numbers for each of these databases for each year. January is a great time to write down the numbers for 2007! It will help you to speed up your reports and save time.