Up/Down-voting records between columns

[CTdbdev]

Hello,

I have a 2013 database where I track our vendors and their prices for our products. Each of our items is it's own row record. The vendor, alternate vendor, and their associated info are in individual column records. I regularly update the vendor information, which if an alternate vendor has better pricing I need to cut and paste the info between fields. This is because only the first vendor info is used in reference to a few other fields that show our list price and the margins from that vendor.
I've been looking at ways to add a button under each vendor field "group" that would say, upon click move those vendor records to the main vendor field group, and downvote the current main vendor.
Or, maybe a single update button that would re-arrange all the vendors based lowest cost first.



Of course as I'm typing this I just thought of another much more simplified method, of just having a drop down field next to the list/margins fields where you select which is the current preferred vendor, and then the margin math is based on whatever that selected vendor is. Hmm..

Any suggestions which of these three methods would be best in Access?
Regards,
Alex

[orange]

..need to cut and paste the info between fields.

It sounds to me that you have a spreadsheet background.
Can you tell us about your tables and any reporting requirements involved?

[rpeare]

Why would you store a vendor as it relates to a client at all? especially if it's subject to price change.

Why can't you, instead, on your data entry form, show the vendor list in order of current product list price? Which is I believe what you mentioned last, that is the way I would recommend.

[CTdbdev]

Well yes, on the form for the particular product, there is a list of the vendors, with multiple fields for their name and cost. What I'm trying to do is have a combo box that allows me to select which is the current preferred vendor, and use that vendors cost in the calculation for the margins. I think/am sure/ my formatting isn't correct for the rowsource. Here's what I'm trying to do. Rowsource= "Vendor 1",ProductsT.ID[Vendcost1];"Vendor 2",ProductsT.ID[Vendcost2]
So data wise the combo box would be like this:
___________________________________________
| Vendor 1 | Vendcost1 from current ProductsT.ID |
___________________________________________
| Vendor 2 | Vendcost2 from current ProductsT.ID |
--------------------------------------------------

Then whichever is selected, stored in CurrentVend, would be used in calculating margins for the preferred (selected) vendor.
Hope this makes better sense, and thank you for your help.
Alex

[rpeare]

Do you have a way of correctly identifying your 'preferred' list (by margin) or is that what you're asking how to do? Without knowing your table structure it would be hard to get at this.