Data Storage

The ERETES database

Any data relevant to the national accounts is stored in a database in the form of basic economic data.

Each item of basic economic data is entered in the database along with “attributes”, which allow it to be identified and called up in the work tables. The main attributes are:

Value	Value of the item of data
Accounting year	The year to which the item of data relates. Each current year can be compared with the previous year.
Active	Only active data are taken into account in the work tables. ERETES never destroys data obtained from a source, it simply makes them inactive. - they can always be consulted.
Status of the value	Distinguishes between data provided by a source and data resulting from a reconciliation
Source	Indicates the origin of data. Each user defines a personal table of sources.
Origin of the product	National or imported. In the work tables, it is possible, if one wishes, to call one only of these two optics
Transaction	The National Accounts Transaction to which the data relates. The ERETES classification of standard Transactions is compatible with the standards of SNA1993. However, the user is free to introduce additional subdivisions.
Debtor sector	The paying institutional sector, when known. The classification of institutional sectors may be adapted to the needs of the user country.
Creditor sector	The collecting institutional sector, when known. The classification of institutional sectors may be adapted to the needs of the user country.
Methodological attribute	Mentions whether it involves supply or demand, perspective of the payer or of the collector. This attribute permits input of the two approaches in the base, and their subsequent confrontation in the work tables. This "confrontation" in an analysis table provides better justification of the reconciliations carried out
Product	The product concerned in the case of an item of data from the sphere of goods and services. The classification of products is chosen freely by the user. It must comprise three hierarchical levels.
Industry	The industry concerned, in the case of an item of data from the sphere of goods and services. The classification of industries is chosen freely by the user. It must comprise two hierarchical levels.
Principal or secondary	Makes a distinction between the principal products of an industry and its secondary products. This distinction appears also in the work tables in question. The user determines the correlation between the industries and their products.
Valuation mode	Indicates the nature of the data : quantity, monetary value, unit price, index, rate or ratio. In the case of monetary values, this attribute is used to distinguish basic price from purchasers' price, accrual amounts from due or payed amounts
Production mode	Allows the user to create sub-categories in the industry accounts. One can choose for example: public enterprises, large private enterprises responding to the enterprise survey, small enterprises from the survey, enterprises absent from the survey, individual entrepreneurs, fraud, informal activities, etc. The analysis ratios in the industry accounts can then be compared for the various Production modes, thereby facilitating the compiling of the table for the less well known parts of the economy, and in particular for undeclared activities.
Asset qualifier	Is it a flow, an asset, a consumption of fixed capital or an asset holding gain ?
Work duration	Allows a distinction between full-time and part-time employment, to facilitate the processing of raw employment data into 'full time' equivalent, or into 'working hours'.
Type of job	Allows a distinction between main jobs and second jobs, to facilitate the processing of raw employment data into 'full-time' equivalent or into 'working hours'.
Date of creation, Date of update	These two attributes are administered automatically by ERETES.