Question

So I’m designing a database using MS SQL with an invoices table and a clients table. My clients table looks something like:

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Client ID   |   Name   |   Phone   |   Address  |  City  |  State  |  Zip  
________________________________

Where the client ID is a GUID primary key.

My invoices table looks something like:

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Invoice ID   |   Client ID   |   Date/Time   |   Price    
________________________________

Where the invoice ID would be a number (starting at say, 1000) and auto-incrementing by 1.

Is this ok, or bad practice? I just don’t want my invoices to be printing out with invoice # 336868de-7778-41fc-ae7f-662f76d5615a....

Answer 1

I personally don’t see a reason to ever use a GUID – if I need something auto-generated, identity it is. So to answer your question, that’s perfectly fine. And as Martin commented, I’d consider using an auto-number for your customer ids as well.