You can compress data in Business Central to save space in the database, which in Business Central online can even save you money. The compression is based on dates and works by combining several old entries into one new entry.
You can compress Cost Entries and Cost Budget Entries under the following conditions:
They're from closed fiscal years.
The Open field is set to No. (Cost Entries)
They're at least five years old.
The amount in the new entry is the sum of all the compressed entries. The date assigned is the starting date for the period that is compressed, such as the first day of the month (if the entries are compressed by month). After the compression, you can still see the net change for each account in the previous fiscal year.
The number of entries that result from a date compression depends on how many filters you set, which fields are combined, and which period length you choose. There will always be at least one entry. When the batch job is finished, you can see the result in the Date Compr. Registers page.
When you are defining criteria for the compression, you can use the options under Retain Field Contents to keep the contents of certain fields.
After the compression, the contents of the following fields are always retained:
Posting Date (Cost Entries)
Budget Name (Cost Budget Entries)
Date (Cost Budget Entries)
Cost Type
Cost Dimension (1 to 8)
Posting Type
Source Type
Work Type Code
Unit of Measure Code
Date compression creates new entries for the compressed entries.
Important
For Cost Entries applies:
The assignment of the G/L entries and the FA entries in the cost entries is not lost during date compression, but points to the new cost entries after compression.
It is not possible to reverse the date compression itself. If you reverse the entries created by date compression anyway, the compressed entries are treated as normal entries and will be reversed.
Warning
The Date compression deletes entries. We recommend that you create a backup of the database before you run the batch job.
To run a date compression
Enter Data Administration in the search, and then choose the related link.
Do one of the following:
To run compression for Cost Entries, select Date Compression, Compress Entries, and then NCCA Cost Entries from the actions.
To run compression for Cost Budget Entries, select Date Compression, Compress Entries, and then NCCA Cost Budget Entries from the actions.
Tip
The date compression can also be accessed from the Administration area of the NCCA Cost Accounting menu bar.
For more information, see General, Role Center Integration.
Options
Starting Date
Specifies the date from which entries should be compressed.
Compression affects all entries from this date to the ending date.
Ending Date
Specifies the date to which entries should be compressed.
Compression affects all entries from the starting date to this date.
Period Length
Specifies the time interval within entries should be combined into one entry.
If you have selected the period length Quarter, Month or Week, only entries with a common accounting period will be summarized.
Posting Description
Specifies a description for the entries that are generated by the compression. The default description is Date Compressed.
Document No.
Specifies whether the entry's document no. should be retained.
