Thanks Steve,
This system is just hobby and for personal use, but I like conforming to the "rules", even if I stay with Excel front- and back-ending Access. This is as much an exercise in learning as it is "production". I did, at one time, experiment with migrating to Access, but because of where and how the bulk of the journal data is retrieved (e.g. transaction downloads from financial institutions), it kept making sense to use a link strategy on the front end. Older journal data also sometimes changed as I worked on reporting (e.g. adding an entry in the Class field to allow for data retrieval). I also had challenges with reporting via Access. Personal accounting financial analysis and reporting lends itself nicely to Excel functions like SUMPRODUCT and INDEX/MATCH, so kept that in Excel with a link query to the Access query(ies).