Embodiments relate to systems and methods for the automatic propagation of data changes in distribution operations in a hierarchical database. Higher-level data, such as yearly profit, may be desired to be spread from parent nodes to lower nodes in the store, such as quarters. Parent nodes can be associated with a set of programmatic placeholder nodes. A spreading tool can access or host sequence logic to ensure that data is spread in an order that takes dependencies, or other factors into account. In aspects, the spreading tool can be configured to generate a propagation trace to identify other nodes in the data store that may be connected to or depend on the data content of the recipient child node(s). A set of propagated data changes, such as updates to values, formatting, or other data, can be automatically transmitted to those other nodes upon completion of the original data spreading operations.