Finding like or similar names

[Laurie B.]

I have have two tables. One table is older then the other. The other table is the most recent table and has approx 66 new records that have no sales engineer assigned to that account.

What I need to do is take those 66 new records and compare them to the older table to see if there are similar names that might match.



For instance, an account may have come in to our system last month as ABC Enterprise, 46 Street, Newark, NJ and then this month as ABC Co, 46 Street, Newark NJ this month. I have linked Name 1 to Name 1 but it only gives me a return of exact and I can do an advanced search as well but I only know how to do that when searching by a specific name.

Is there a way to link the two tables and create a like query to see if those 66 new accounts could already be in the older table assigned to a sales person?

Thank you
Laurie B.

[orange]

Not with 100% accuracy.
Most organizations will have an authoritative table/list of their customers. These Customers will be identified by some unique number. The Business Names and aliases will be stored and related to the unique number. Often there is a group of people whose job is to verify the Customer -- name, address, zip, phone etc. before entry into the live system. If there is a new alias, or chan ge to the Customer's coordinates, this group will update the appropriate data and tables.

You can use string searches and Soundex algorithms to find similar data, but in the someone will need to say this is really the same as Customer 778 or this is a new customer to be added to our master Table.