Towards the development of consistent and unambiguous financial accounting standards using ontology technologies

Abstract

The purpose of accounting is to gather financial data of a business or entity, to interpret this data and to report the results in financial statements to the different users thereof. The interpretation of financial data is regulated by financial accounting standards including an conceptual framework that were developed to facilitate the reporting of financial information of entities so that investors, analysts, creditors as well as the entities themselves can make informed financial decisions. Due to the history as well as some of the mechanisms used to develop the financial accounting standards, conceptual framework and interpretations, inconsistencies and ambiguities are part of the common legacy accountants and auditors are confronted with every day. This is problematic because financial reports have to be clear, concise and unambiguous as the cornerstone of international economies. In order to address the inconsistency problems, the development of unambiguous and principle based financial accounting standards is a key initiative of international financial accounting standards bodies such as the FASB and the IASB at present. This paper is concerned with the question of how recent developments in computer science technologies, specifically within knowledge representation and ontology technologies, could assist in dealing with and eliminating inconsistencies and ambiguities within and between different financial accounting standards. In our research, we developed a formal ontology for some of the basic elements, and in this paper, we report on our findings as well as make some suggestions for a formal approach to the conceptual framework and financial accounting standards development.