Database Structure Question

[chad]

Hi I am looking for recommendations on how to best structure my database.  I currently am using a simple EAV structure.  Now proficient in that method for version 2 of my App I wanted to explore some different options, the EAV has proven to be difficult to use with a growing/continually changing project.  I use amfphp to interact with my flash application.

The goal is to track finances in different ways and to allow the customer to generate reports by looking at the data in different ways.  The reports they request are always changing so in a later version I will be letting the customer dynamically create the design of their reports.  Looking at creating an XML that handles math applied to different fields in the Database.

Please share any ideas on structure suggestions/ideas.

Thank you!
Chad

[Ronald Wernecke]

It is allways the same procedure:

first - get to know all the data you want to collect and store
normalize the data
create the tables

normalizing basicly means - findout which data es structural identical - put those into its own table

it might be useful not to normalize to the end, and keep parts, or all data unnormalized because of ease of query or peformance.