DB table design Q

[John]

I'm building a db to store product monthly profit and loss data. Is it
better to have:
(A) each row represents the product and all of its 30 p&l line items,
or
(B) each row represent the p&l line item

So,
tbl_A:
ProductID, Year, Month, Rev1, Rev2, Cost1, Cost2...

tbl_B:
ProductID, Year, Month, PLID, PLamount

Tbl_A rows would contain null values in some fields. Tbl_B would
contain redundant data in fields (ProductID, Year, Month).

So, the question I guess, is what's a better design? Fewer null values
in a row, or less redundancy?

[Mark]

John,

How about ---

TblProduct
ProductID
ProductName

TblPLMonth
PLMonthID
PLYear
PLMonth

TblPLMonthDetail
PLMonthDetailID
PLMonthID
ProductID
PLAmount

Note - PLAmount would be entered as a negative number for losses and a positive
number for profits.

Your data entry form would be a form subform where the main form would be based
on TblPLMonth and the subform would be based on TblPLMonthDetail. The
Linkmaster/Linkchild properties would be PLMonthID. The main form would contain
two comboboxes for picking the Year and Month. ProductID in the subform would be
entered via a combobox based on TblProduct.

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"John" <so*********@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:90**************************@posting.google.c om...

I'm building a db to store product monthly profit and loss data. Is it
better to have:
(A) each row represents the product and all of its 30 p&l line items,
or
(B) each row represent the p&l line item

So,
tbl_A:
ProductID, Year, Month, Rev1, Rev2, Cost1, Cost2...

tbl_B:
ProductID, Year, Month, PLID, PLamount

Tbl_A rows would contain null values in some fields. Tbl_B would
contain redundant data in fields (ProductID, Year, Month).

So, the question I guess, is what's a better design? Fewer null values
in a row, or less redundancy?