Database designers use tables to group together common, repeating information.
For example, information regarding a department structure, including the name of the department, a code to represent the department, accounting information related to the department, and the department's location are all logically grouped together on the Department Table. Creating the Department Table ensures that all this information does not need to be collected over and over again on each sub-table that may require the information. This also ensures reporting can be effectively done, by having only one place for a report developer to look at to find department information. As reference 'look ups' to help processing. If there is an invalid location code associated with a department on an employee's payline, a payroll error message will be generated.