Explain the difference between master and transaction file.
Answers
collection of transaction records. The data in transaction files is used to update the master files, which contain the data about the subjects of the organization (customers, employees, vendors, etc.). Transaction files also serve as audit trails and history for the organization. Where before they were transferred to offline storage after some period of time, they are increasingly being kept online for routine analyses. See data warehouse, transaction processing and information system.
Following are the kinds of fields that make up a typical transaction record in a business information system. There can be many more fields depending on the organization. The "key" fields below are the ones that are generally indexed for fast matching against the master record. The account number is usually the primary key, but name may also be used as a primary key. See master file for examples of typical master records.