> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://gchandra.gitbook.io/data-warehousing/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://gchandra.gitbook.io/data-warehousing/data-warehousing-concepts/types-of-facts/transaction-vs-periodic-vs-accumulating.md).

# Transaction vs Periodic vs Accumulating

| Transaction                    | Periodic                                                    | Accumulating                                                       |
| ------------------------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Stores lowest grain of data.   | Stores current state of data at a regular interval of time. | Stores intermediate steps that has happened over a period of time. |
| one row per Transaction        | one row per time period                                     | one row per entire lifetime of the event                           |
| Date dimension is lowest table | Date/time is regular interval of snapshot frequency         | multiple data dimensions for intermediate steps                    |
| Easy to aggregate              | minimal aggregation                                         | not easy to aggregate                                              |
| largest database size          | Medium Database size                                        | Smallest Database Size                                             |
| Only Insert                    | Only Insert                                                 | Insert and Update                                                  |
| Most business requirement      | business performance is reviewed at regular interval        | the Business process has multiple stages                           |