Organized Data. Organizing data ... the idea of accounts.

Accounts are a way of getting a lot of transactions ... that is debits and credits ... organized so that they can easily be understood. All of the cash transactions are recorded in one account ... the cash account.

All of the goods received and goods delivered are recorded in one account ... the stock or inventory account.

So with other similar transactions ... similar transactions all together in one account.

TVM goes beyond the corporate system of accounting so that there is a similar rigor for recording social value as the corporate system has around recording revenue and profit. The origin of an account probably goes back to the idea that a responsible person had to give an account ... an accounting for what had happened. In practical terms an account in accounting is a critical part of the way accounting gets data organized.

Account codes. Account codes are important in accountancy ... they make organizing a lot of data much easier and especially, account codes facilitate easy rapid analysis. The logic of account codes makes it possible for there to be “roll up” and “drill down” that are easy and make sense. The structure of the account codes in themselves tell a story about the organization! Account codes identify accounts ... just as account names identify accounts. Codes can make it easier to process transaction data automatically, as long as the account code designers have some understanding of computer logic and sorting.

Transactions. Transactions are the elemental economic event ... any economic activity comprises many transactions. Every purchase or sale is a transaction. Production is a transaction. Consumption is a transaction. Movement is a transaction. Everything. TVM provides a framework so that small amounts of data can be used to build up a complete picture of the impact that economic activities are having on the community and how much resources are being used to give what result ... whether value adding or value destroying.

Vouchers ... Journals ... Books of original entry. A voucher is a document or record of some sort that describes the transaction. It may be a document that describes the sale ... an invoice ... or it might be a set of papers prepared to evidence the approval of the the transaction. Journals are the books of original entry are the first step in traditional accountancy for getting the details of the transaction organized and on the record. Journals ... or day books ... are essentially lists of transactions ... with ALL transactions being put on the record.

The data about society in the modern world may not use these paper based elements ... but the data has to start somewhere. Essentially, all these various elements do is to put on paper ... on the record ... a piece of data about a fact. This does not change as the system becomes electronic!

Relational database. A relational database is part of the key to modern data organization. The normalization of the data makes it possible for a lot of data to be well organized with a minimum of effort. The modern relational database makes it possible for almost unlimited information to be analyzed and summarized in all sorts of ways. The rigidity of accounting and also TVM makes it possible for much of the analysis and the aggregation of data to to be done very simply and very quickly and easily.