The first and fundamental question is why do you have duplicated data? This
is always going to create more work and, at worse, is a recipe for disaster.
I would suggest that you look to changing the system so that there is only
one data source.

To answer your question more directly you could add a field "Update date"
and as long as this is changed every time data is changed you will have a
point of reference on what records have been changed. You could identify
changed records by sorting on date or by filtering.

Hopefully this may just give a pointer in the right direction.

Regards.

Bill Ridgeway
Computer Solutions

"styx44" wrote in message
...
I have 2 large data bases that change in a small way each month. One has an
extra 2 columns which never occurs on the new DB. Only the account number
is
consistant. How can I check each for changes and merge only the new dats
into
the batabase?