Augmented Intensional Reasoning in Knowledge-Based Accounting Systems

Abstract

A limitation of existing accounting systems is their lack of knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse, which makes the design and implementation of new accounting systems time-consuming and expensive. An important requirement for knowledge sharing and reuse is the existence of a common semantic infrastructure. In this article we use McCarthy's (1982) Resource-Event-Agent (REA) model as a common semantic infrastructure in an accounting context. The objective is to make knowledge-intensive use of REA to share accounting concepts across functional boundaries and to reuse these concepts in different applications and different systems, an approach we call augmented intensional reasoning. Intensional reasoning is the active use of conceptual structures in information systems operations such as design and information retrieval. For augmented intensional reasoning, the conceptual structures are extended with domain-specific REA knowledge. Sections II and III describe different dimensions of augmented intensional reasoning: the REA primitives, the technological features needed to support augmented intensional reasoning, the need for epistemologically adequate representations to make augmented intensional reasoning feasible, and the practical necessity of implementation compromises. Sections IV and V explore two uses of augmented intensional reasoning: design and operation of knowledge-based accounting systems. The example in Section V explains how augmented intensional reasoning works: (1) define the conceptual schema, (2) structure the conceptual schema in terms of REA (knowledge augmentation), (3) define a shareable and reusable accounting concept (claim), and (4) use the concept (claim) to derive information in different accounting cycles (revenue and acquisition).