Financial data can get overwhelming, and that's why reports are so helpful. They provide a summary of voluminous amounts of information in a clear and understandable format. But what if something doesn't look exactly right, and the viewer would like to dig deeper to find out more? This case, and many like it, calls for the ability to "zoom in" on financial data, to find out what's behind the numbers.
To start, I'm using very detailed journals and ledgers, and on the flip side, somewhat inflexible reporting functionality. One way to bridge the gap between the fine-grained and wide-angle view is to use our calendar for breaking up the information into smaller pieces. The only problem with that is that many accounts issue statements in the middle of the month rather than on the beginning or end.
Another way to zoom-in and out of financial data is by categorizing the transactions into organized groups. This is automatically done to some degree through the use of accounts, and one of my collaborators recently suggested the use of sub-accounts to better organize accounts. I had started on this idea awhile back and am now working more on it. My understanding of sub-accounts is that they would be hierarchical rather than relational, meaning an account could be a sub-account of one, and only one, other account.
It will also be very important to be able to search through the financial data. By having a fast and effective searching system in PBooks, users will be able to come up with their own categories quite easily.
Which reminds me, we also need to support some sort of purchase ordering system!
