A collection of records pertaining to one of the main subjects of an information system, such as customers, employees, products and vendors. Master files contain descriptive data, such as name and address, as well as summary information, such as amount due and year-to-date sales. Contrast with transaction file.
Following are the kinds of fields that make up a typical master record in a business information system. There can be many more fields depending on the organization. The "key" fields below are the ones that are generally indexed for matching against the transaction records as well as fast retrieval for queries. The account number is usually the primary key, but name may also be primary. There can be secondary indexes; for example, in an inverted file structure, almost all the fields could be indexed. See transaction file for examples of typical transaction records.
Following are the kinds of fields that make up a typical master record in a business information system. There can be many more fields depending on the organization. The "key" fields below are the ones that are generally indexed for matching against the transaction records as well as fast retrieval for queries. The account number is usually the primary key, but name may also be primary. There can be secondary indexes; for example, in an inverted file structure, almost all the fields could be indexed. See transaction file for examples of typical transaction records.
EMPLOYEE MASTER RECORD
key Employee account number
key Name (last)
Name (first)
Address, city, state, zip
Hire date
Birth date
Title
Job class
Pay rate
Year-to-date gross pay
CUSTOMER MASTER RECORD
key Customer account number
key Name
Bill-to address, city, state, zip
Ship-to address, city, state, zip
Credit limit
Date of first order
Sales-to-date
Balance due
VENDOR MASTER RECORD
key Vendor account number
key Name
Address, city, state, zip
Terms
Quality rating
Shipping method
PRODUCT MASTER RECORD
key Product number
key Name
Description
Quantity on hand
Location
Primary vendor
Secondary vendor
 | Reproduced with permission from Computer Desktop Encyclopedia. Copyright (c) 1981-2009 The Computer Language Company Inc. All rights reserved. |
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