Seattle Method

As pointed out , accounting is a closed deterministic system.  Its logic is reproducible, auditable, and mathematically coherent. This determinism, combined with its capacity for both precision and structured adaptability make accounting truly unique. These deliberately provided characteristics can be leveraged when putting together an industrial process. The work of accountants, auditors, and analysts can be described as "arranging abstract symbols". Algorithms can be used to describe this work. Poka yoke is a Lean Six Sigma technique that can be used to "mistake proof" work processes. ValueFlows is a model for coordinating economic activity. ValueFlows and others use the Resources, Events, Agents ( REA ) model to describe the accounting process.  The ISO/IEC Accounting and Economic Ontology includes REA. Data Centric Accounting ( DCA ) describes the facets of a business event. * * * Service as Software ( SaS ) will be a new way to deliver professional service...

The implementation approaches to representing something like digital accounting artifacts such as accounting working papers, audit working papers, financial statements, and financial analysis models and the base taxonomy metadata to support those artifacts  can be grouped into three technology architectures or stacks.  Those technology architecture stacks are: Semantic Web Stack (a.k.a. Semantic Web Layer Cake ): These are the standards published by the W3C. Labeled Property Graph (LPG) : Graph databases that use the ISO standard graph query language ( GQL ). Logic Programming : Includes ISO standard PROLOG , SQL, XBRL . Multiple technology architecture stacks is a fact of life.  Different enterprises have different preferences and therefore make different choices as to their desired technical implementation approaches.  That said, it is possible to transform between different implementation approaches.  The global open industry standard logical conceptualizat...

The triangle of meaning (a.k.a. triangle of reference ) was first introduced in  the book The Meaning of Meaning by Charles Kay Ogden and I. A. Richards which was published in 1923. The purpose of the triangle of meaning is to understand how to make communication reliable, repeatable, and interoperable. Basically the triangle of meaning is about precision of communication. There are many different versions of the triangle of meaning. Several other versions are mentioned under additional information below. Mainly these triangle of meaning representations are for domains such as linguistics, philosophy, and knowledge engineering and use specialized jargon to explain what they are trying to explain.  I find all of these too hard for the typical business professional to understand. And so, what I did was to take the best aspects of these other triangles of meaning and synthesize the information into something that I can understand and perhaps other business professionals can als...

Accounting is one of the strongest, oldest, most mature, and most rigorously enforced provenance preserving systems humans have ever build.  Every accounting system is a provenance machine for economic activity of an economic entity. Part of that provenance machine is the double-entry bookkeeping (a.k.a. double entry accounting) mathematical model. The first documented use of double-entry bookkeeping was in 1211 by a bank in Florence. This meant that for the first time, a trusted family member did not have to keep the books.   Around 1300 double-entry bookkeeping came of age. In 1494 during the Renaissance, Venetian mathematician and Franciscan friar Luca Pacioli   published a book, Summa de arithmetica, geometria. Proportioni et proportionalita (Sum of Arithmetic, Geometry, Proportion and Proportionality) which formally documented and standardized double-entry bookkeeping. Accounting records where economic events came from, documents who performed them, pres...

Accounting, the universal technology of accountability , is one of the most mature, enduring and robust information processing systems ever devised in human history. With over more than 7,000 years of incremental, iterative refinement; accounting has evolved into one of the most stable, resilient, and interoperable information systems ever developed.  The system includes accounting of business events related to financial transactions, the reporting of that financial information, assurance of that information in the form of an audit when deemed necessary, and analysis of that financial information. Accounting is grounded on a foundation of transparency, traceability , and reliability enabled by robust internal quality control. Its core mechanisms, most notably double entry bookkeeping and financial statement articulation , create a system in which every recorded business event is cross checked, internally validated, and mathematically constrained . These aspects are mechanical and ...

Epistemology is the study of the nature and sources of knowledge ; how we know what we think we know.  In business, there is the notion of "due diligence".  You would not sign a contract without performing adequate due diligence. Epistemology is similar to doing that same due diligence on your own thoughts and data to understand what you know and why you know it. Epistemology is a layer which governs how we distinguish between raw inputs (data), structured meaning (information), and trusted actionable knowledge. Imagine "data", "information", and "knowledge" in terms of building a house. Bricks, 2 by 4s, cement, rebar; that is the level of "data".  The raw materials used to build a house. "Unprocessed". Walls, doors,  windows,  roof, floor; that is the level of "information". Information is like the bricks, 2 by 4s, and cement arranged into the structures that make up the house. "Processed bricks,  2 by 4s, and...