1. A method for use in a data management system for building a database from a plurality of input records having data fields, comprising the steps of: A. constructing a detail table by (1) generating a database record corresponding to each input record, each database record including dimension fields containing dimension values and summary fields containing numeric information (2) assigning a record pointer for each of the database records, each database record being addressable by the assigned record pointer and, (3) storing the database records in the detail table; B. constructing a detail index by (1) reading the database records and selecting index sets of the plurality of database records wherein each index set includes a plurality of database records having a common combination of dimension values for the associated dimension fields, and (2) storing the record pointers assigned to the database records of the index sets in detail index nodes of the detail index; C. constructing a summary table by (1) reading the database records and selecting summary sets of the plurality of database records wherein each summary set includes a plurality of database records having a common combination of dimension values for the associated dimension fields, (2) generating summary nodes of the summary table, the summary nodes for storing summary information of the summary fields of the database records of the summary sets of the database records, (3) generating summary information from the numeric information contained in the summary fields of the database records, and (4) writing the summary information into the summary nodes; and, D. constructing a summary tree for accessing the plurality of detail index nodes and the plurality of summary nodes for combinations of dimension values by (1) generating a dimension node for each index set and a dimension node for each summary set, each dimension node corresponding to an index set being identified by the common combination of dimension values of the corresponding index set, each dimension node corresponding to a summary set being identified by the common combination of dimension values of the corresponding summary set, and writing each dimension node into the summary tree hierarchically as a node Of the summary tree and according to the common combination of dimension values identifying the dimension node, (2) storing the detail index node of each index set in the dimension node corresponding to the index set, and (3) storing the summary node of each summary set in the dimension node corresponding to the Summary set.