Patent ID: 8539006

Claim:
A method executed at least in part in a computing device for providing logical Chart of Accounts (COA) in an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, the method comprising: defining a logical COA comprising metadata, constraints, criteria, and relationships, wherein the metadata defines existing segments, a type of data the segments hold, and structures for the logical COA, and wherein the constraints and the criteria filter a set of valid combinations based on which values exist in other segments; maintaining the logical COA without persisting combinations of the constraints, criteria, and relationships until a first time a combination is requested; in response to a request for the combination within the logical COA, determining whether the combination exists in a physical COA; if the combination does not exist in the physical COA, persisting the combination in the Physical COA; rendering the combination in the physical COA available for subsequent requests; employing a single unique identifier for non-transient combinations; and employing a first transient identifier for main combination of each transient combination and a set of second level transient identifiers for sub-combinations associated with a hierarchy of the main combination.