About Financial Data Items

Definition: Financial data items

Financial data items are database objects that are used to store or calculate financial data values. There are two types of financial data items:

• Stored financial data items, which are used to store values

• Formula financial data items, which are used to calculate values

Stored financial data items

A stored financial data item can accept data in the following ways:

• You can enter the data manually using a worksheet or a data entry form

• You can enter the data using a data loading program

• You can copy the data into one financial data item from another financial data item

Formula financial data items

A formula financial data item contains a formula that calculates values based on the values of one or more stored financial data items. For example, you might create a formula financial data item called Budget Variance whose values reflect the difference between two stored financial data items, Actuals and Budget.

The values of a formula financial data item are calculated and displayed in a report or graph that includes the financial data item. Because the values are based on another financial data item, whose values may change, the values of a formula financial data item are not permanently stored in the system. They are calculated based on their associated stored financial data items.

Types of formula financial data items

There are two types of formula financial data items:

• Formula Manual -- The value of the financial data item is dynamically calculated using a formula in which the data's dimensionality is specified by the user

• Formula Automatic -- The financial data item's value is dynamically calculated using a formula in which the data's dimensionality is automatically determined from a stored financial data item

Who can work with financial data items?

Administrators

As an administrator, it is your responsibility to maintain the financial data items that your users access in the shared database that you administer. When you create or modify a financial data item and want other users to be able to access it, you must distribute the financial data item to the shared database and to other users.

Budget workstation users

As a Budget workstation user, you can create and modify financial data items for personal use. You can modify financial data items that your administrator has created for you, but you cannot save the modifications unless you assign a new name to the modified financial data item and retain the original. Also note that you cannot submit data to the shared database if it is associated with a financial data item that you have created in your personal database.