Identifying Key Accounting Tables

When given the task of creating a report, one of the first steps is identifying which tables will be used as the data source. The same applies to creating financial reports. There are three primary tables necessary for financial reporting:

• List of Account Types
• Chart of Accounts
• Journal Entries

If you aren’t familiar with the database, it can sometimes take a bit of work to figure out which tables hold this information. You have to know what type of data to look for and make sure it is complete (sometimes the data is spread out across multiple tables).

Once you identify these three tables and determine how they are organized, you can start building your reports. Unfortunately, every accounting database is different and it isn’t always easy to determine which tables you need. The next section focuses on helping you figure out how to identify each of the key tables. But first, let’s look at the database tables we’ll be working with.