Inputs

The “inputs” or incoming data

What can be loaded in the ERETES database?

The database can receive all data used to compile national accounts, whatever they are:

Survey Data	Business surveys, households surveys
Administrative data	Government finance statistics, bank accounts, fiscal data
Rates	Trade or transport margins, tax or VAT rates, actual social contributions rates…
Indices	Prices, volumes, values indices

How should these data be loaded ?

It is neither possible nor useful to load the elementary data of a survey (e.g. at the level of an enterprise,  a household). The data must be aggregated by product, industry, sector, etc., according to the classifications chosen by the users.

The data must also undergo a preliminary analysis, in order to determine the correct national accounting transaction for each of them.

This initial formatting  of data sources is done using “attributes”, described in detail in the page ERETES database.

The interest of loading employment data

The ERETES industry account proposes tools to help the accountant estimate the unreported part of the economy thus improving the completeness. These tools are based on the analysis of various economic ratios: output or value added by person employed, remuneration per employee, intermediate consumption/output ratio. Most of these tools refer to the workforce information. To take benefit of using them, it is necessary to have compiled a balance of the national employment situation, listing data on workforce by industry and by status (wage-earners, managers, self-employed, etc.).
It is therefore advisable to have such supplementary data available. If this is not possible, you can of course use ERETES, but you cannot use these tools to assist you in evaluating informal activities.

Is it true that ERETES requires more data than other systems ?

The numerous work tables and synthesis tables proposed by ERETES may give the impression that far more data are required to compile the accounts than under other systems. This is a false impression, for two reasons:

1. It is not mandatory to compile all the tables proposed ; each country is free to decide the scope of its national accounts. Some countries still do not compile institutional sectors accounts or compile them partly. In terms of goods and services accounts, some countries compile only accounts in values, because they lack price or volume indices. Others compile only a global balance between supply and demand of intermediate consumption, without trying to synthesise the Use matrix. Finally some of them only compile industry accounts. All can be ERETES users but the wider the scope of accounts is, the larger the gain of using ERETES integrated approach is.
2. Each table provides a framework for the analysis of a restricted subset of data, a sort of “zoom” on this subset (relative to a product, an industry, a transaction). In this limited framework, it is easier to reconcile the different points of view, and to estimate the missing data. Indeed these missing data could be obtained by balancing the supply-use balances and the from-whom-to-whom matrices, or by analysing ratios of various production modes in the industry accounts.