The Role of Ontologies for Designing Accounting Information Systems

Abstract

The accounting ontologies were conceptualized as a framework for building accounting information systems in a shared data environment, within enterprises or between different enterprises. The model’s base feature was an object pattern consisting of two mirror-image that represented conceptual the input and output components of a business process. The REA acronym derives from that pattern’s structure, whichconsisted of economic resources, economic events, and economic agents. The REA model was proposed as a means for an organization to capture the signification of economic exchanges between two business partners. The REA ontology provides an alternative for modelling an enterprise’s economic resources, economic events, economic agents, andtheir relationships. Resources are considerate organization assets that are able to generate revenue for implicated parties. Events provide a source of detailed data in this approach. Agents participate in events and can affect some resources. They can be anindividual or organization inside or outside the organization that is capable of controlling economic resources and interacting with other agents. The objective of this work is to offer an understandable of this framework and to explain how this model can help us via the identification of the afferent concepts.

Keywords

• REA ontology
• accounting information systems
• business process
• economic exchange