Self taught, mostly by practice and looking at samples and experience. BOL and web search helps and looking at forums like this one. This forum has a lot of articles...

Try this

CREATE FUNCTION dbo.fn_CalculateMinutes

  (@DateFrom datetime, @DateTo datetime)

  RETURNS int

AS

BEGIN

    DECLARE @hFrom int, @hTo int, @mFrom int, @mTo int, @hol int

    SET @DateFrom =...

Try this

CREATE FUNCTION dbo.fn_CalculateHours

  (@DateFrom datetime, @DateTo datetime)

  RETURNS int

AS

BEGIN

    DECLARE @hFrom int, @hTo int

    SET @DateFrom = (CASE DATEPART(weekday,@DateFrom)

        WHEN 1 THEN...

You cannot ORDER BY on a column alias

try changing GROUP_ID to #groups.[ID] in the ORDER BY clause

Why run around the block when you can nip through the alley

SELECT STUFF(@postcode,LEN(@postcode)-2,0,' ')

SERVERPROPERTY in BOL has this

The ServerName property of the SERVERPROPERTY function and @@SERVERNAME return similar information. The ServerName property provides the Windows NT server and instance name that together make...

Make sure MSDTC (Support Services / Distributed Transaction Coordinator) is started.

First, your first post syntax is correct (I assume the comma between sa and Password is a typo, should be semi-colon). AFAIK there are only two reasons for the login...

select [col]

from

order by cast(

(case when patindex('%[a-z]%',[col]) = 0

then [col]

else left([col],patindex('%[a-z]%',[col])-1)

end) as int),[col]

Generally I agree with you, the only difference is in the Merge Join, either a 'Right Outer Join' or 'Right Anti Semi Join'.

It all depends on volume, the higher the...

INSERT INTO Exceptions

    (

    RecordType,

    CustCode,

    BalanceOutstanding,

    PastDue,

    CurrentDue,

    RepayAmount,

    SettlementAmount,

    DateApproved,

    LastPmtDate,

    LastPmtAmount

    ) 

SELECT

    a.RecordType...

It's only easy when you know the answer

Nice one Scott  , your right, I thought of that but only after I posted

Even better...

How many merchants are there?

How long does the whole process take? (you state > 30 mins)

Based on my last post, if there are 2,000 merchants and it takes 30 mins...