General Ledger Design Concepts
| DIMENSION | HIERARCHIES WITHIN THE DIMENSION |
Financial/Legal Requirements:
| 1. Company | Parent, Subsidiary, Branch |
2. Account |
Account group, sub-group, and Account Number (e.g. Expenses contains LaborCosts, contains Wages) |
3. Accounting Period |
Fiscal Year, Fiscal Quarter, Month |
Financial Management / Accountability Requirements:
| 4. Transaction Type | Transaction Type (such as Actual, Budget, Forecast) |
5. Department |
Department |
Management Requirements:
| 6. Customer | Customer Class,
Customer (Client) (Most costs and revenues in the enterprise originate in systems where the Customer ID can be captured. The Customer ID is key to many valuable Joins into Customer table ) |
7. Employee |
Employee Class, Employee (Theoretically, most labor costs can be captured together with a code for Employee or class of employee. Many organizations also associate sales, or nonlabor costs such as automobiles or facilities, with employees or classes of employees) |
8. Vendor |
Vendor Class, Vendor (Theoretically, most costs other than labor can be captured along with a Vendor code or class of Vendor.) |
9. Job or Activity |
Job Class, Job (Accounting for profits and losses by activity is essential in many companies) |