Executive Summary

The Seattle Method is a proven, rigorously tested, pragmatic, global open industry standards based framework for producing high quality precise machine interpretable digital business reports. Accounting is a deeply understood knowledge system now undergoing a major transformation as digitization enables industrialization of reporting, auditing, and analysis. Model-driven digital accounting, reporting, auditing, and analysis artifacts are the next evolutionary step, a step that replaces ad hoc “craft” based processes which rely on individual skills, judgements, and memory into best practices based, standardized, scalable, repeatable, efficient industrial processes.  This can occur because digital machine interpretable business reports can be created using global open industry standards such as XBRL International’s Open Information Model (OIM) and the Object Management Group’s Standard Business Report Model (SBRM).

Digital financial reporting is not about standardizing forms but about enabling controlled customization through well defined business report models. This controlled flexibility allows computers to reliably interpret meaning, enabling automation of tedious accounting tasks and freeing professionals to focus on higher value work. Business report logic can be expressed using multiple technical formats including Semantic Web technologies, labeled property graphs, or logic programming with each different approach preserving the underlying conceptual logical model. This interoperability allows knowledge to flow between systems, agents, and applications, forming a new medium for exchanging meaning in both financial and non financial reporting contexts.

The Seattle Method, OIM, and SBRM are a foundation for a new era of human–machine teaming. By enabling precise information exchange and reducing epistemic risk, it supports Lean Six Sigma–level improvements in accuracy and efficiency. Accounting, auditing, and analysis will shift from manual “data janitor” work toward augmented, collaborative processes where machines handle repetitive tasks and humans apply judgment. This transition requires a new mental model, a model suited to the logic of digital information exchange rather than analog-era assumptions and promises substantial productivity gains, higher quality, and more reliable decision making.

For more information, please see the Seattle Method Overview.

Additional Information:


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Overview

Image
( Executive summary ) Innovation doesn’t arrive. Innovation evolves. Imagine it.  Freedom from drudgery. Freedom from the toil of tedious, repetitive, mundane, monotonous tasks. Far less time needs to be spent fulfilling the role of "data janitor".  Time spent "transaction chasing" is significantly reduced. Accounting is a well understood system which has evolved over many thousands of years. Accounting, reporting, auditing, and analysis is being digitized. This digitization will enable processes to be industrialized  and productivity boosts to be realized.  This overview is an attempt to take the work that I have done to understand XBRL-based reports and back into a framework for explaining those reports, accounting and audit working papers, analysis models to accountants and software engineers building software for accountants.  I am now referring to this as model-driven reporting . The sources of the information provided below are my " lab notebook " f...
Read more

Knowledge

Image
Knowledge is the most precious kind of information and consists not just of simple analysis, but of crucial insights that combine information with context. Knowledge is information that has been interpreted, connected to experience, and made actionable. Knowledge is interpreted information which is understood within some conceptual framework (a.k.a. shared definition, area of knowledge ) giving the information meaning . Knowledge is a form of familiarity with information from some specific area or corpus. Knowledge is often understood to be awareness of facts, having learned skills, or having gained experience using the things and the state of affairs (situations) within some area of knowledge. They call people familiar with knowledge within some area of knowledge a subject matter expert (SME). Knowledge is facts and information.  Knowledge of facts is distinct from opinion or guesswork by virtue of justification or proof.  Knowledge has a scope. Knowledge is objective but ex...
Read more

Complexity

Image
The world is complex.  But sometimes humans can come together, leveraging the power of agreement, and agree enough to create something useful in meeting some specific important aim and satisfying some agreed upon set of goals and objectives. A kludge is an engineering/computer science term that defines what is best described as a workaround or quick-and-dirty solution that is typically clumsy, inelegant, inefficient, difficult to extend and hard to maintain; but it gets the job done. The nautical term for a kludge is jury rig. By contrast, elegance is beauty that shows unusual effectiveness, grace, and simplicity. The alternative to being a kludge is  elegant simplicity . Elegant simplicity is achieved through complexity via hard work an, clever ideas, etc. Gall's Law states that a complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. This principle emphasizes that effective complex systems develop from simpler, functio...
Read more