The Transaction Files contain all transactions (Sales Invoices, Purchase Orders, ROA Payments, etc.). When the current Transaction File reaches the Max Size or the Split On is reached, Keystroke stops saving transactions to it by setting the ending date of the current file to the current date and time. A new Transaction File is created with the current date and time set as its starting date. Subsequent transaction are saved to the new transaction file (which is now referred to as the current Transaction File, the old current file is now referred to as a previous Transaction File).
To adjust the Transaction File Settings:
- Select Database from the Configuration Manager Settings menu.
- Select Split On.
- Select a Split On option from the list if the default Size Only setting is not desired.
- Enter the desired Max Size (in Megabytes) if the default 40MB setting is not desired. Max Size may be set to up to 600MB.
The Split-On options include:
- Size Only - Based only on the Max Size parameter.
- Week - A new Transaction File is created each Monday.
- Month - A new file is created on the first of each month.
- Quarter - A new file is created at the beginning of January, April, July, and October.
- Year - A new file is created on January 1.
The file always splits when it reaches the Max Size even if the Split On period has not yet been reached. For example, if the Transaction Files is set to split on the Month and the Max Size is set to 10 MB, the file will split at the beginning of each month. If it reaches 10 MB on the 28th of the month, it will split based on the Max Size on the 28th and then again on the 1st of the next month.
Note: If the Transaction File reaches 3.6 million records it will be Split (its ending date is set to 10 minutes from now so new transactions go into the next file). At this point the file will be approaching 2GB in size which is the maximum file size.
Transaction Split-On Calculation:
During a Data Conversion for data prior to v6.xx, the Transaction Split-on calculation sets the Split On based on the last 10 transaction files with an average maximum size of 30MB. While it also depends on other transaction data and the number of line items per transaction, the sales transaction per day breaks are approximately:
- 0 to 16 = Yearly
- 17 to 64 = Quarterly
- 65 to 190 = Monthly
- 191 to 800 = Weekly
- More than 800 per day = Daily.
Transaction Files and Database Files Notes:
If the Split On setting is set to anything other than Size Only, when the current date reaches the start date of the last transaction file, the program splits the file for the next period (always 1 additional file). This reduces/eliminates the need to pack a transaction file due to a post dated transaction being in it. If the transactions are never post dated, then the last transaction file will always be blank. If transactions are post dated, then there will be a better chance that they will be saved to the correct file and will not need to be moved later.
With the increased capacity of the files and the increased number of Transaction Files, Keystroke is able to store, and have available for review, over 2 billion sales transactions (depending on hardware, average number of line items, and other transactions being saved).
4-byte long integers are used which allows 2,147,483,647 (2 billion) maximum records. This is also true for record numbers (Stock Number, Customer Number, etc.). However, by default, the display size for the record number field is 9 characters which limits the maximum number to 999,999,999 (almost 1 billion).
The Keystroke Database Engine uses a native format for indexed fields. This improves the speed, capacity, and accuracy of the databases allowing for more records to be accessed and for more indexes to be made available on each type of database.
See:
Configuration Manager Contents