Well, yes, but you really need to add some information to it. The last system I worked on that really needed dates for transactions and reporting stored: local

Well, yes, but you really need to add some information to it. The last system I worked on that really needed dates for transactions and reporting stored: local time, local time zone, local offset from UTC at time of event, and UTC time stamp. Its amazing how complicated your life can get when reporting across time zones and then mixing that with legal requirements for some reporting. Also, time zone id and local time is insufficient unless you keep reference tables that can calculate what offset was in effect at the time of the event. Save the trouble and just record it along with the time stamp.