What is an entity?

LUSID's data model is designed to be flexible rather than constrain your data to our view of the world. We require you to model only a small set of real-world objects as entities. For example:

An instrument represents a real-world financial asset such as an equity, swap, option, bond, currency and more.
A transaction represents economic activity in a particular instrument, such as the purchase or sale of a quantity of an equity.
A portfolio represents a store of transactions and other economic activity affecting one or more instruments.
A holding represents your position in a particular instrument, automatically calculated by LUSID from the history of economic activity in a portfolio.

The full set of LUSID entities and their key characteristics are listed in the table below. You can extend the built-in set by creating custom entities.

Note the following:

Transactions and holdings are stored in portfolios, so some of their characteristics are determined by the 'parent' transaction portfolio.
A scoped entity is one that exists in a logical data partition known as a scope. You can use scopes for numerous purposes, including setting access control permissions to determine who can see or change the entity.
An identifier is a set of attributes that combine to identify an entity in some way. Most entities have a single identifier whose value uniquely identifies that entity. Some entities can have multiple identifiers, in which case the entity can be addressed by any, though note an identifier value may be shared between multiple entities. A scoped identifier is an identifier that can itself be scoped (separately to the 'parent' entity).
You can extend the core data model of an entity by adding custom properties. A property is perpetual if its value is not expected to vary during different time periods (ie. a person's date of birth), and time-variant if it is (ie. a person's address). Note any property can change (that is, be corrected, and previous values retrieved using LUSID's bitemporal as at timeline); perpetuality refers to validity rather than mutability.
A derived property has a value that is not hard-coded but rather calculated on demand by a mathematical or similar operation.

See also these related tables summarising:

Access control support for entities.
Perpetual and time-variant support for entities and for component parts such as identifiers and data fields as well as properties.

Identifiers

CRUD operations

Custom properties

Entity type

Scoped entity?

Identified by

Multiple identifiers?

Scoped identifiers?

Create

Get

List

Update

Delete

Property domain

Perpetual properties?

Perpetual multi-value properties?

Time-variant properties?

Time-variant multi-value properties?

Derived properties?

Abor

TRUE

Scope/Code

FALSE

TRUE

Abor

TRUE

FALSE

Abor Configuration Module

TRUE

Scope/Code

FALSE

TRUE

AborConfiguration

TRUE

FALSE

Allocation

TRUE

Scope/Code

FALSE

TRUE

Allocation

TRUE

FALSE

Block

TRUE

Scope/Code

FALSE

TRUE

Block

TRUE

FALSE

Calendar

TRUE

Scope/Code

FALSE

TRUE

Calendar

TRUE

FALSE

CDS Flow Convention

TRUE

Scope/Code

FALSE

TRUE

N/A

Chart Of Accounts

TRUE

Scope/Code

FALSE

TRUE

ChartOfAccounts

TRUE

FALSE

Configuration Recipe

TRUE

Scope/Code

FALSE

TRUE

ConfigurationRecipe

FALSE

Corporate Action Source

TRUE

Scope/Code

FALSE

TRUE

FALSE

TRUE

FALSE

TRUE

N/A

Counterparty Agreement

TRUE

Scope/Code

FALSE

TRUE

N/A

Credit Support Annex

TRUE

Scope/Code

FALSE

TRUE

N/A

Custodian Account

TRUE

Scope/Code

FALSE

TRUE

CustodianAccount

TRUE

FALSE

TRUE

FALSE

Custom Entity

FALSE

EntityType/IdentifierScope/ IdentifierType/IdentifierValue/ RelationshipDefinitionIds

TRUE

CustomEntity

TRUE

FALSE

TRUE

FALSE

Custom Entity Type

FALSE

EntityType

FALSE

TRUE

FALSE

N/A

Cut Label Definition

FALSE

Code

FALSE

TRUE

CutLabelDefinition

FALSE

Data Type

TRUE

Scope/Code

FALSE

TRUE

FALSE

N/A

Derived Portfolio

TRUE

Scope/Code/RelationshipDefinitionIds

FALSE

TRUE

Portfolio

TRUE

Diary Entry

TRUE

AborScope/AborCode/DiaryEntryCode

FALSE

TRUE

FALSE

TRUE

FALSE

DiaryEntry

TRUE

FALSE

Execution

TRUE

Scope/Code

FALSE

TRUE

Execution

TRUE

FALSE

Flow Convention

TRUE

Scope/Code

FALSE

TRUE

N/A

Fund

TRUE

Scope/Code

FALSE

TRUE

AborConfiguration

TRUE

FALSE

Holding

TRUE

-Determined by transaction portfolio-

FALSE

TRUE

Holding

TRUE

FALSE

TRUE

Index Convention

TRUE

Scope/Code

FALSE

TRUE

N/A

Instrument

TRUE

IdentifierType/IdentifierValue/Scope/ RelationshipDefinitionIds

TRUE

FALSE

TRUE

Instrument

TRUE

Instrument Event

TRUE

Scope/Code/InstrumentEventIds

FALSE

TRUE

FALSE

TRUE

InstrumentEvent

TRUE

FALSE

Legal Entity

FALSE

IdTypeScope/IdTypeCode/Code/ RelationshipDefinitionIds

TRUE

LegalEntity

TRUE

Order

TRUE

Scope/Code

FALSE

TRUE

Order

TRUE

FALSE

Order Instruction

TRUE

Scope/Code

FALSE

TRUE

OrderInstruction

TRUE

FALSE

Package

TRUE

Scope/Code

FALSE

TRUE

Package

TRUE

FALSE

Participation

TRUE

Scope/Code

FALSE

TRUE

Participation

TRUE

FALSE

Person

FALSE

IdTypeScope/IdTypeCode/Code/ RelationshipDefinitionIds

TRUE

Person

TRUE

Placement

TRUE

Scope/Code

FALSE

TRUE

Placement

TRUE

FALSE

Portfolio

TRUE

Scope/Code/RelationshipDefinitionIds

FALSE

TRUE

Portfolio

TRUE

Portfolio Group

TRUE

Scope/Code/RelationshipDefinitionIds

FALSE

TRUE

PortfolioGroup

TRUE

FALSE

Property Type

TRUE

Domain/Scope/Code

FALSE

TRUE

N/A

Quote

TRUE

Scope/QuoteSeriesId

FALSE

TRUE

N/A

Reference List

TRUE

Scope/Code

FALSE

TRUE

N/A

Reference Portfolio

TRUE

Scope/Code/RelationshipDefinitionIds

FALSE

TRUE

Portfolio

TRUE

Relationship Type

TRUE

Scope/Code

FALSE

TRUE

N/A

Side Definition

TRUE

Scope/Side

FALSE

TRUE

N/A

Tax Rule Set

TRUE

Scope/Code

FALSE

TRUE

N/A

Transaction

TRUE

-Determined by transaction portfolio-

FALSE

TRUE

Transaction

TRUE

FALSE

TRUE

Transaction Fee Rule

FALSE

Code

FALSE

TRUE

N/A

Transaction Template

TRUE

InstrumentEventType/InstrumentType/ Scope

FALSE

TRUE

N/A

Transaction Type

TRUE

Scope/Source/Type

FALSE

TRUE

TransactionConfiguration

TRUE

FALSE

Transaction Type Source

TRUE

Scope/Source

FALSE

TRUE

N/A

Transaction Portfolio

TRUE

Scope/Code/RelationshipDefinitionIds

FALSE

TRUE

Portfolio

TRUE