Attributes of an Account Dimension

The asset and liability types are aggregated over time and must be linked to an aggregation dimension in the model (such as the built-in Date dimension).

Rate Type

This attribute column appears when you switch on Currency Conversion in the model preferences. With currency conversion switched on, set the Rate Type to Average for INC and EXP accounts, and to Closing for AST and LEQ accounts. This setting corresponds to the rate type for exchange rates in your currency table. It lets you distinguish between the average exchange rate over a period and the closing rate at the end of the period. For more details, see Currency Conversion Tables.

Use this attribute to set the value type and display units. Select one of the following from the list:

• Currency: Use this option for all monetary values. In this case, the unit defined in Scale is shown in all data output and the appropriate currency symbol is displayed after the numerical value.
  Note

  For the currency conversion feature, each Account has to have Currency set for this attribute. For more information, see Currency.
• Label: You can enter a text label (up to 30 characters in length) for this member to define your own display units; this can be a unit of measure or a packaging unit such as Bottles. The label you enter is displayed after the numeric value; for example, 25 Bottles.
• %: The percentage option works in the same way, showing the percentage symbol after the value. In this case, the Scale attribute is also automatically set to percent.

The attribute can also be left blank. In this case, the abbreviated unit from Scale is displayed (see below).

For account members that are parent nodes, the aggregation type determines how values are accumulated from the leaf nodes. These aggregation types don't relate to any dimension.

• SUM: This is the default aggregation type for income and expense values; this simply adds all values together.
• NONE: If the value types of numerical data cells are different, aggregation may not be possible; this may be the case, for example, for price information or cells containing different currencies. For these account members, set the aggregation type to NONE. In tables in stories, cells that have not been aggregated are shown with a diagonal line drawn through them. The cell will be either empty, or, if all child values for a node in the hierarchy are the same, this single value is shown at the node level.
• LABEL: Set the aggregation type to Label for any dummy nodes on the hierarchy where you want a text label to appear in the data grid without any calculation of values. In this case, the Description Text for the member is displayed as a label, and a simple dash character is used where otherwise an aggregated value would normally be displayed. You cannot set leaf nodes to type Label – this is immediately flagged on screen as an error.

Use exception aggregation when you want to aggregate non-cumulative quantities. For example, if you have the quantity Inventory Count, you might want to aggregate the inventory count across all products, but not across time periods, because it doesn't make sense to add up inventory counts from multiple time periods.

In this case, you would choose the aggregation type SUM for Inventory Count, because you want to add up the inventory counts for all products. But if you don't specify an exception aggregation type, the inventory counts will also be summed across time. To prevent summing inventory counts across time periods, specify an exception aggregation type for the time periods.

For example, you might want to choose just the most recent set of Inventory Count values. In this case, you would choose the exception aggregation type LAST, and the exception aggregation dimension Date.

Exception aggregations relate to one or more dimensions. For example, for the AVG and LAST exception aggregations, a Date dimension is appropriate. If you select an exception aggregation type, you must also select an exception aggregation dimension.

You can also use exception aggregation when you've included aggregated quantities in formulas, to ensure that the formula calculations are performed before the aggregation. For more information, see Price * Volume Formulas and Aggregation in Formulas.

If an exception aggregation dimension is required for the member (depending on the account type or aggregation type), enter it here. Choose a dimension from the dimension selector dialog, which shows all dimensions in the model and the built-in Date dimension.

This feature is related to the setting of the Unit attribute that determines if the Scale word or just the abbreviated Scale letter is used (see also the example following this table):

• If Unit is set to Currency, the word selected as the Scale value is used in the output.
• If Unit is undefined (blank), the abbreviated Scale letter is used.

This setting defines the number of digits displayed after the decimal point; select a value from 0–7.

Calculations and predefined formulas can be used for any value of the Account dimension.

Refer to the Formulas section for full details.

Calculate on

This column is still available, but deprecated, because it doesn't work in all cases. Instead, we recommend that you use exception aggregation. For details, see Aggregation in Formulas.