I have a database where I want to track employee vacation time. They start the year with a certain number of days, and then use them throughout the year. Next year they can carry forward up to 10 days, plus get the new year's additional days, of course. This is like an inventory system, where I both receive new stock and also sell off stock and want to track stock on hand. Do you cover anywhere the best way to set up such tables? I could start with a certain amount to begin and then continually add and subtract as they use and add days, but this would get slow with 200 employees and years worth of data. Suggestions?

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Reply from Richard Rost:

Well, if you care about keeping a HISTORY of when days were added and subtracted (and you probably do) then you just need a simple table to track the ins and outs - like product inventory. I can't see it getting TOO slow. Even with 200 employees, and let's say 10 transactions each year, after 5 years that's only 10,000 records. It's a good number, but it's not outrageous. If it starts to run slow, then just archive the records off after they're 2 years old so you still have the history, but you can keep a current count in the main table.