Which statement correctly describes alternate hierarchies in FCCS?

• A. Single entities having multiple parents
• B. Parent members having the same currency
• C. Contribution to parent members are similar
• D. Data must be entered multiple times for shared members

Answer: (A)

Alternate hierarchies let the same entity participate in more than one hierarchical path, providing multiple ways to roll up data. In FCCS, you typically have a standard (primary) hierarchy, but alternate hierarchies add additional parent relationships so a single member can be linked to different parent members in different hierarchies. This enables multiple views of the same data—such as statutory versus management reporting—without duplicating data entry, since a single data point is aggregated through each applicable path. The key idea is that one entity can have multiple parents across the set of hierarchies, which is what makes alternate hierarchies powerful for flexible reporting.