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Asked: 2026-05-13T06:31:05+00:00

I have a table called Billing , which is basically a receipt (for different

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I have a table called Billing, which is basically a receipt (for different types of transactions). The app has a feature that you can create new charges (well, all charges except for tax and other constants). Since there would be a dynamic number of charges, we decided to store the charges for a billing on a single text field with a JSON structure. So the Charges column contains stuff like this:

{"CrateFee":50,"DeliveryFee":90,"PackagingFee":20}
{"DeliveyFee":90,"ServiceCharge":200}

Our alternative would be to create a separate table for these charges, with this structure:

Charges
BillingId | ChargeName |  ChargeValue
1           CrateFee      50
1           DeliveryFee   90
1           PackagingFee  20
2           DeliveryFee   90
2           ServiceCharge 200

We decided against the second method because it would be populated by tens of thousands of rows in just a single day (estimate is about a thousand transactions in a day). I know we’ll be limited with what we can do with the data if we use the first one, so I really want to push the separate table method. But I have no idea on scaling, optimizing, etc. when it comes to databases, so I need some help with this.

Is it OK to use the second method? How will this impact performance? Are there other alternatives?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The first implementation might make it easier to sstore the data in a single line, but you are opening yourself to a whole world of hurt.

    By correctly using indexes on the fields, you should not have major issues, so i would recomend the second approach.

    Also, at some later stage you can try implementing archiving, which should also help with the size of the second table.

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