Hi Cam

If you view the item's transactions, the date of the first invoice (i.e. shipment) would be the date the part was first shipped.

If you need this for a Crystal Report, your idea of creating an optional field is a good one. To dump the info into that field, you don't have to key it in, you can use the import function after creating an Excel file (using Crystal Reports) listing items and the first ship date.

Steve