Charles --
I believe you are confusing the Baseline Start and Baseline Finish fields
with the Start and Finish Fields. When you save a baseline for your
project, the Start date for each task is copied to the Baseline Start field,
and the Finish field is copied to the Baseline Finish field.
When you begin entering progress on a task, Microsoft Project determines the
Actual Start date for the task and resets the Start date to match the Actual
Start date. When a task is finished, Microsoft Project determines the
Actual Finish date of the task and resets the Finish date to match the
Actual Finish date.
The Baseline Start and Baseline Finish fields will remain unchanged during
this process. To know whether your project is slipping, apply any task view
such as the Tracking Gantt view, then apply the Variance table. Compare the
Start and Baseline Start fields, and compare the Finish and Baseline Finish
fields. The variance between each set of two, shown in the Start Variance
and Finish Variance fields, shows whether your tasks on on schedule, behind
schedule or ahead of schedule.
Hope this helps.
