It is not surprising that a large number of retail companies have their own Fact Sheets, which are documents (typically printable versions) that store and track inventory information and sales information. The most common use for a data cube is in fact measure the quantities of products available on display. Retail stores use this type of document to provide information to the customer about product availability. In this way, the store is able to provide clear and concise answers to customers regarding product availability. Fact measure in a data cube used at a retail chain business is particularly useful when calculating the price per product by multiplying the quantity of items on the display with the average sale price.
If a fact sheet is to be used in an electronic or Internet-based system, it should be created in a.txt format file. That is, it is a text file with formatting that can be edited, printed or converted to electronic format. Some text editing software will allow for simple editing and conversion of data into a Word file, Excel or HTML. With such capabilities, the user does not need to be concerned about formatting errors and making data entry into the system. Instead, all that is required is to copy and paste the required information into the data cell. That is why it is best to purchase and learn some basic Microsoft word skills.
Once the data has been entered into the cell, the user can then highlight all the required columns for the fact to be calculated as well as clicking the ‘Show/Recalculate’ button. The calculate button will automatically perform the necessary calculations. The resulting value, which will appear in the data cube below, represents the product percentage used in total. While Excel and Word formats may look very similar, they are not the same thing and should never be treated as such.
- Fact measure tools in a data cube can also be used to display a trend line.
- In order to do this, the user must drag the trend line and drop it onto the data cube.
- Depending on the type of format being used (Excel or Word), the fact will either be automatically formatted or the user must manually enter the required data into the data cell.
- The result of this action can be a final label created by the fact that is used to display the trend line.
A final fact measure capability can be found in some chain retail software packages. This feature is referred to as an ‘aggregate’ capability. With this capability, users can create aggregates that can show the percentage of products sold over a given period or over a group of products. Aggregates can be based on sales during particular hours of the day, days of the week, over a specific geographic region or over a specific time frame. While such aggregates will help the retailer to make strategic decisions about inventory, it can also be used to generate profit figures for an overall analysis.
Retail chains are constantly under pressure to find new ways to reduce their costs while increasing customer satisfaction. While many of these methods have been tried and tested, sometimes they prove to be ineffective. When trying to find new ways to improve cost reduction, often the best way to begin is to develop better accounting practices. One of the easiest ways to accomplish this is to implement better fact measures and to develop better aggregation capabilities within chain retail accounts receivable and other related data management systems. By improving the fact collection process and developing better aggregation capabilities, any business that has a data management system designed for fact measures can greatly increase its effectiveness.