Don't give up already! This is not a typical use of Project, and it is taking me some time to figure out what you are doing, but I do believe it will work fine. I think you do not use the difference between work and duration, but for your purposes they are the same thing.

Try this:

Change the fields.
Get rid of all fields that contain the word "Work"


Instead add fields so they're in this order:
Name, Baseline Start, Baseline Finish, Baseline Duration, Actual Start, Actual Duration, % Comp, Actual Finish

See if you can enter the baselines (you can enter the Baseline Dur as 18h) and then the ActualStart and then ActualDuration (9h) and project will calculate the rest.

Kimberly
this seems to be working. I will add this to my project sheet that has all the tasks that I am tracking. I have been working with a test sheet for now.

it is not that I was giving up, it is just that I have been working onn this for a couple of weeks. first it was the problem where only a certain amount of data in the notes field was getting exported when I created the excel sheet for this project. I was working with someone to get a macro together that would export all of the information in the notes field.

then I had this problem.

I do have a couple of questions.
1) does the order of the fields in the sheet matter? in two of your responses, you mention to enter the fields in a certain order.

2) I have created the fields and entered the data in the tracking table. is this where I do all of the editing to the tasks when it comes to the dates and durations? is the entry table just for entering the tasks for the first time and adding any fields that do not pertain to dates and durations.

again
thanks for all of the help that you have given me on this.

3) when the boss and I were taking about this, he was talking about baselines being done on a monthly basis so thet we can track the progress from 1 month to another. since I am using the baseline fields to hold the estimate information, this will screw this all up , won't it? if he wants to baseline, how would we handle this?