 Hello and welcome to this session in which we will discuss flat files versus a structural databases. Starting with flat files, flat files refer to the type of files that stores data as plain text and is not organized into a structural database. Simply put, flat files are simple. That's why they are stored in plain text, easy to create and can be opened in any text editor or software that can read text files. And most likely you worked with them, you saw them before, some examples will be the comma separated values or tap separated value files and it would look something like this where you would download the, it looks like an Excel sheet, you will download, for example, I downloaded this Excel from the IRS website. It's about the nonprofit organization in New Jersey. They have their names, their addresses, their tax status, so on and so forth. So this is what a simple or flat files would look like. Now what are they used for? What are they used for? Why do we use them? Well, for data storage, for example, I want to download them and just data storage. Just save them, keep them for later use. I can transfer them between system or I can transfer them between software. For example, if I'm running some statistical information or I'm looking for, I'm looking to study this data about New Jersey nonprofit organization, I can easily take this information, fix it, clean it and put it into a new software. It's also useful for archiving or backup purposes if I keep this or for that data that does not need to be updated frequently. If I want to update it frequently, that's not the best way to do it. How different flat files from structural databases? Because you want to understand flat files in that context because we are using big data these days. Before we proceed any further, I have a public announcement about my company, farhatlectures.com. Farhat Accounting Lectures is a supplemental educational tool that's going to help you with your CPA exam preparation as well as your accounting courses. My CPA material is aligned with your CPA review course such as Becker, Roger, Wiley, Gleam, Miles. My accounting courses are aligned with your accounting courses broken down by chapter and topics. My resources consist of lectures, multiple choice questions, true-false questions as well as exercises. Go ahead, start your free trial today, no obligation, no credit card required. Well structural databases are organized collection of data stored in a specific format such as an SQL structured query language and it would look something like this versus the Excel sheet that I showed you. The tables are connected through certain keys and would learn about those topics more when we talk about the database. But structural databases in relationship to flat files, they offer better data management, better organization, better retrieval capabilities. So if you want to look up something, query the data, it's easy to do so. It's easy to generate a report and it can handle a large amount of data efficiently. And they're better suited to changes. Remember we said flat files, they're not good for changes. So it's better suited for changes. So if you change something, if you change a customer name, it will change everywhere that needs to be done in a structural databases and flat files. You will need to change the customer, let's assume phone number or address in many different places because the files are not interconnected. They are flat. Each one is separate. So they provide a built-in mechanism for updating, inserting and deleting record. However, that comes with a cost and it's complex to administer and set up. So structural databases will cost you more money to maintain. It will cost you more money to set up and will cost you more money for administration purposes. Now, obviously, it's good to just look at a comparison to see the two. When it comes to scalability flat files, they become unwinding as they grow, making it more difficult to process, manage or retrieve information. Structural databases are scalable and these days with big data and data is growing every day, you want to use structural databases because it can handle a large amount of data efficiently. Data integrity, that's important. Flat files usually lacks that mechanism for enforcing data constraints such as unique values, minimum, maximum values. For example, as I showed you that Excel sheet in the earlier and for example, I can put in the zip code any numbers I want or I can put letters for that matter because that files is a flat files and it can result in data inconsistencies or errors. If it's a structural databases and I'm trying to put a zip code, that's not even a valid zip code or letters rather than numbers, the system will not accept it. So structural databases, they have a data integrity. As far as performance, flat files can slow when they are processing large amount of data, especially if you're searching, sorting or filtering. On the other hand, structural databases are designed or optimized for these tasks so they're better performance. As far as security, flat files don't provide any built-in mechanism for protecting sensitive data, encryption or access control under a structural databases. You can provide better security features, you want to authenticate the individual, maybe provide them with a password and give them access to certain areas, not access to everything. Also what's important is complex data relationship. Flat files are not well suited for representing complex relationship between data elements. On the other hand, structural databases like relational databases are designed specifically to be able to help you connect the dot or connect complex relationship. Also in a structural databases, you can have concurrent access. In other words, many people can be working on the database as long as the proper controls are there, allowing multiple users to access and modify the data at the same time. Flat files don't allow you to do that. What should you do now? Go to Farhat Lectures and look at MCQs that's going to help you understand these topics better. Whether you are studying for your CPA exam, CMA exam, some sort of a professional organization, professional certification, or for your accounting information system, it's very important to test yourself to understand the concept better. The difference between flat files and structural databases. Good luck everyone. Stay safe and invest in yourself.