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Asked: 2026-05-24T01:53:56+00:00

I am working on building an application for a banking institution where the accuracy

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I am working on building an application for a banking institution where the accuracy for monetary transaction is very much essential. I am thinking of using the datatype Money in SQL Server.

So I need suggestion whether the datatype I am using is enough to provide accuracy or not? I also wanted to know which one if better if i use the numeric datatype or Money datatype?

Thanks in advance

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  1. Editorial Team

    A quick search in the SQL Server Books Online would have revealed….

    money
     -922,337,203,685,477.5808 to 922,337,203,685,477.5807     8 bytes

smallmoney
     - 214,748.3648 to 214,748.3647                            4 bytes

    The money and smallmoney data types are accurate to a ten-thousandth of the monetary units that they represent. (that’s four digits after the decimal point)

    Numeric data types that have fixed precision and scale.

    decimal[ (p[ ,s] )] and numeric[ (p[ ,s] )]

    Fixed precision and scale numbers. When maximum precision is used, valid values are from – 10^38 +1 through 10^38 – 1. The ISO synonyms for decimal are dec and dec(p, s). numeric is functionally equivalent to decimal.

    p (precision)

    The maximum total number of decimal digits that can be stored, both to the left and to the right of the decimal point. The precision must be a value from 1 through the maximum precision of 38. The default precision is 18.

    s (scale)

    The maximum number of decimal digits that can be stored to the right of the decimal point. Scale must be a value from 0 through p. Scale can be specified only if precision is specified. The default scale is 0; therefore, 0 <= s <= p. Maximum storage sizes vary, based on the precision.

    Numeric (or Decimal which is the same) certainly has the larger range – and you can tweak how many digits you need before or after the decimal point.

    On the other hand – even Money is accurate to one tenth of a thousandth of dollars or Euros or whatever currency you’re interested in – that’s typically enough even for a bank….

    So basically:

    • if you need more than 4 significant digits after the decimal point, or more than 15 digits before the decimal point – pick NUMERIC / DECIMAL

    • otherwise, MONEY will be just fine

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