How could I use a Calculated Value in a MS Word Mail Merge?

[stocktonnn]

Hi,

I am a beginner user developing an access system for my children's entertainment company. Since we are getting much busier, I am creating a database where we can log bookings and enquiries and manage customer relations.

The data entry form that the sales team will be using contains several text boxes which calculate the prices of the party booking, outstanding balances based on values of deposits etc. I was so far happy with how everything was working but I fear I may have tried to run before I could walk!

Basically, the next stage is to set up mail merge emails to confirm bookings, prices, outstanding values etc but it has become obvious the word cannot merge a calculated value from a form as it is not saved to a table. Obviously sending information about prices and balances is crucial for the emails we send, so how would I go about doing this?

I had read it was bad practice to save a calculated value to a table, (which is the only solution my novice brain can see unfortunately!) so how could I merge a calculated value without doing this? Not sure if i'm going about this problem wrong or if the structure of my database is just flawed for what I'm trying to do.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[RuralGuy]

There are circumstances where having a calculated value in a table is appropriate. You have one of those conditions.

[stocktonnn]

ah that makes my solution a lot easier to solve then!

Now my question would be this, if I were to save a calculated value to a table and then for some reason the variables for the calculation were to change, would the saved value automatically update or would I some sort of code/macro to re-write the saved value?

[RuralGuy]

The saved value would not change which is why having a calculated value in a table is discouraged. You do understand that queries can have calculated values, right? Mail Merge can use a query for input as you cannot tell the difference between a query and a table.