Some of your tables have a one-to-many relationship, which means that one
record in one table can have more than one relationship in another table.
When you use the 'Equijoin', which is the first, default, join, you tell the
computer to match up every record in one table with every record in the
second table that has the same value.
These relationships are most useful if one record is related to the records
in another table intrinsically, not just because they share the same vendor.
Why are you using vendor name instead of a key field? Generally vendor name
is a bad key field, because it's too easy for people to make a mistake, like
putting two spaces between names, or leaving off a period, or using
different abbreviations.
With five tables, it matters how they are related to each other.
Your vendor table, (which should be keyed on a number, not a name) is the
main table, the the Vendor name field should be the primary key for this
table. It would be most efficient if the other four tables have the Vendor
name field indexed. Then, each of the four tables should be linked to the
vendor table, not to each other. The line connecting the tables should
point to the Vendor name field in each of the four data tables, coming from
the Vendor file.
If you don't have a vendor file, you will have to build one, using a
MakeTable Totals query, and have all five of your tables related to this
temporary work table.
