What is a fact in analytics terminology?

Parthiban Kannan

Updated on January 2, 2026

< 1 min read

A fact is a measurable business event stored in a fact table.
It usually contains numeric values like sales amount, quantity, or revenue.
Facts are linked to dimensions such as date, product, and customer.
In a sales project, each order line was treated as a fact record.
The fact table stored order amount, units sold, and discount value.
Facts are typically aggregated for reporting and dashboards.
They represent “what happened” in the business.
Accurate facts are critical for reliable analytics and decision-making.