Financial Transactions and Rollups

This chapter discusses two distinct but related features. One feature is the ability to roll up numbers from records that contain the most detailed information through a hierarchy into one or more levels of records that contain summary information. The other feature is the ability to report financial and other numeric transactions that occur in applications to users and to external applications.

There are two different mechanisms for rolling up numbers. One is a relatively simple mechanism for rolling up numbers directly through a hierarchy. The other is a more flexible and feature-rich mechanism that uses a hierarchy indirectly to roll up numbers that are part of a transaction.

The first section of this chapter describes the mechanism for rolling numbers up through a hierarchy. This is followed by a description of financial transactions and how they can be used to roll up totals into records that are not organized into a hierarchy. After describing hierarchical rollups and financial transactions, the chapter compares the two different methods of rolling up numbers.