Maybe if I explain what I am trying to do more. We get two flat files from another group. This group is difficult to deal with and lacks any techical people and won't add any flags to the data. One file contains the DEPARTMENT table data and the DEPARTMENT_CODE table contains the current valid DEPARTMENT_CODE values, so the actual data entry is done somewhere else and I am suppose to come up with a way to automate the loading of these flat files into the there corresponding tables. I am not allowed to delete any records from the DEPARTMENT table and I must replace the DEPARTMENT_CODE table with the data from the latestflat file.