Formats, Forms, Records, and Fields

When working with format specifications, it is important to understand the difference between formats, forms, records, and fields.

The structure of a format can be illustrated in this way:

A format is a description of Maconomy’s interface with another system, for example, the financial system of a bank. The format can contain several forms; for example, the format with an interface to the Girobank systems can contain the payment forms “Common,” “Giro to Bank,” “Giro to Bank with Remittance Lines,” and so on.

Further, the forms contain a number of records. A record can be of various types: File Start, File End, Section Start, Section End, or Payment. The different record types can either signal the start or end of a payment file, specify that a section within the payment file is starting or ending, or specify that the current record contains a payment entry.

Each record can contain a number of fields. The fields contain the units of data from Maconomy, for example, the name of a vendor, an amount, or other. The field also contains information about the way it should be written to the file (for example, left-aligned and with modulus control).

Furthermore, records can be collected into groups or sections. A payment file can, for example, contain information about payments to many vendors, where all payments to the same vendor are grouped in a sector.