Post Code Analysis

It can be useful to analyse (say) sales by post code but with the varying lengths of post codes – for example Liverpool is ‘L’, some London areas are ‘EC’, you can’t create a standard item for analysis unless you manually entered these details into a separate data item. This new feature allows you the option to create two sub-items based on the post code that will enable this analysis.

The first, PC-MAIN, takes the initial letters of the post code, the second PC-BREAK, takes the first part of the post code.

Example Post Code PC-MAIN PC-BREAK

CH41 5AZ CH CH41

L3 4BD L L3

EC1M 9RT EC EC1M

Whichever item you require can then be used for sorting and subtotalling in your reports.

Installation

To use either of these options requires you create a sub-item in a database containing a post code (such as the sales accounts file). The data items need to be created with the detail below.

Item Name Type Description

PC-MAIN = Sub-item of the post code, starting at position 1 with a size of two characters. If the second character is a number then this is replaced with a blank.

PC-BREAK = Sub-item of the post code, starting at position 1 with a size equal to the length of the post code field itself.