Abstract: A system and method is provided to input, store, and present business objects historical data representing a series of values and/or states taken by a variable and/or object, respectively, over a validity time period. Because the financial world bases its behavior on its perception of the future as well as on its understanding of the past, such a representation of data is more detailed and accurate and further facilitates both the implementation of software applications and the manipulation of time dependent data in these software applications.