Seattle Method

Ask yourself this question:  In your current accounting system, can you follow a financial transaction all the way back to the business event that spawned the transaction and then forward again to the exact financial statement line item where it ultimately appears? And can you also start at any financial statement line item and drill down to the full set of underlying business events and transactions that roll up into that reported amount? If you can’t move effectively and confidently in both directions; from summary to detail and from detail back to summary; what exactly is preventing that? Semantic fragmentation inhibits traceability. Traceability relates to identification of information, digitization of information, connecting that information into an unbroken chain to enable traceability and trackability, the actual tracing and tracking itself, and accounting/audit related aspects of traceability and trackability. Traceability and trackability demonstrates control. Traceability...

Semantics is the meaning behind the words we use. A theory defines the semantics of some system we use within an area of knowledge. A theory relates to some specific context and for some specific purpose.  A theory achieves this definition process using the formal language of logic . The elements of logic are used to provide definitions in the form of logical statements that form the theory. A theory provides semantic scaffolding, a common semantic foundation, essential infrastructure. (Universal truths related to the system, contextual validation, categorization) A theory provides a deliberate, purposeful, carefully vetted, explicit, formal unambiguous controlled vocabulary of terms which represent the important things (i.e. nature and structure) in a system, the organization (i.e. "is-a", "general-special"; connections, relationships, associations)   of those things (i.e. primitive things and complex/compound things; concrete things and abstract things) within t...

The purpose of this blog post is to reconcile the alignment of the Seattle Method , XBRL International's Open Information Model (OIM), and the Object Management Group's Standard Business Report Model (SBRM).  The Seattle Method, OIM, and SBRM are pretty much aligned because the Seattle Method is based on XBRL and OIM and the Seattle Method is also the basis for much of SBRM. The Seattle Method semantic model, OIM semantic model, XBRL semantic model, and SBRM semantic model will then form an aligned formal global industry standards based  conceptualization of  a business report knowledge graph and the foundation upon which model-driven digital business reporting (including financial reporting) ecosystem will be built. First off, the Seattle Method, OIM, and SBRM should be grounded in some sort of upper level or top level ontology . This provides a rock solid foundation. Second, the objective is to create something like an " accounting oracle ", metadata for an eco...