So you're using a DSUM inside the query now, and you want to make a DSUM function to do the same thing and use the same way in the query? Unless you're applying it to less records or something, that's still doing the same thing, calculating a value for every record.

If you want to look at speed problems, you could try to reduce the amount of records that it needs to run on, or look into any queries that are part of that DSUM, like PaymentQ if it has DLookup/DSum/etc functions in it that you don't need, you may be better off making a new query that omits those fields so it doesn't have to calculate them.

If your DSum is slow, it could be how your query is built. You might be faster going straight to the tables. I actually have a video on this coming out soon. Stay tuned.

Yes am tuned, waiting for that help

Thanks Adam, actually am a database developer in my company specializing in access, I have a customer who has used her database for 7 years now, and the slowness in her school database has began to surface, now that an developing a better version of the same , I would like to make it better than , than being used by such clients. Thanks

A query should use Sum(), not DSum() (or Count, not DCount, and so forth), especially when the tables have lots of rows, which is likely why you see the slowdown.  Sum() is made specially for queries and performs well even if it is evaluated repeatedly.  E.g.:

     SELECT Sum(Field1) FROM Table1 GROUP BY SomeID;

Even if the query above returns a million rows and Sum() is calculated a million times, the query will still be fast.

But if you try to run DSum() a million times with this:

     SELECT DSum("a", "b", "c") FROM Table1;

It will be slow to a crawl.  DSum() is essentially a separate query of its own, so it's like running a million queries at once, hence the slowdown.

DSum() should only be used once or twice, in a form footer or report footer or something, not hundreds or thousands of times in a query.

Your queries need to be rewritten to have all the DSum, the reason of your slowdown, removed.  There is no better function to replace it with, except Sum().  But to use Sum(), all your queries will have to be rewritten as aggregate queries.

Thanks Kevin