What is master data?

Master data is the set of shared records a business runs on: customers, suppliers, products, locations and accounts. Transactions refer to it. An order names a customer and items, and a receipt names a supplier and a location. Wikipedia lists the usual categories as "parties (individuals and organisations, and their roles, such as customers, suppliers, employees), products, financial structures (such as ledgers and cost centres) and locational concepts". Profisee, which sells master data software, calls it "the core, non-transactional data used across your enterprise".

Master data and transactions

Master data changes slowly. Transactions happen constantly and point to it. So an error in master data costs more than an error in one transaction. A wrong fact on an item record is repeated on every order, receipt and invoice that uses it. A product's units and conversions are attributes of its record. One wrong conversion multiplies through every purchase booked against it.

In a timber business

Master data also answers questions of its own. From Quarri's own work with a lumber and millwork manufacturer: about 7 in 10 stocked items had a single supplier. That is a supply risk that doesn't appear in a sales report.

What it isn't

Master data isn't reference data, such as lists of species codes, grade names or units, though the two are related. Wikipedia draws the line: "reference data is concerned with classification and categorisation, while master data is concerned with business entities." Nor is it the same as transactions, which record events.

What to check

Check that every item has the right units and conversions, and that supplier links are current. Review changes before they take effect, since a change to master data changes every future transaction that uses it.

Standard advice is to give each type of master data an owner and a governance process. A business with two people in finance can't staff that. For a small team, the more useful step is usually fewer copies: one item list and one supplier list, used by every system.

Quarri for wood products is built around how a wood products plant runs, where the order book meets real capacity.

Quarri is an AI-native data platform for the timber supply chain. It connects buying, production, sales and inventory for forest management, sawmill, wood products and pulp, paper and packaging operators.