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Conceptual Modeling of Accounting Information Systems: A Comparative Study of REA and ER Diagrams

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Book cover Conceptual Modeling for Novel Application Domains (ER 2003)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 2814))

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Abstract

The Resource-Event-Agent (REA) accounting model is an enterprise domain ontology for developing accounting systems. As a semantic data model, the REA accounting model is based on the Entity-Relationship (ER) meta-model, but contains additional ontological primitives and axioms, and associated modeling guidelines, that help constructing and validating conceptual models of accounting information systems. In this paper we evaluate REA modeling by means of a controlled experiment. The goal of this empirical investigation is to assess and compare the pragmatic quality of REA and ER diagrams when used as conceptual models of transaction-oriented business processes. We hope that this work contributes towards an improved understanding of the benefits of using the REA accounting model as a quality assurance tool for the conceptual modeling of accounting information systems.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Hoveniersberg 24, 9000, Gent, Belgium

    Geert Poels

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  1. Geert Poels
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. CRISM/Infolab, Tilburg University, 5000, Tilburg, LE, The Netherlands

    Manfred A. Jeusfeld

  2. Department of Information Systems and Computation, Technical University of Valencia, Camino de Vera s/n, 46022, Valencia, Spain

    Óscar Pastor

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Poels, G. (2003). Conceptual Modeling of Accounting Information Systems: A Comparative Study of REA and ER Diagrams. In: Jeusfeld, M.A., Pastor, Ó. (eds) Conceptual Modeling for Novel Application Domains. ER 2003. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2814. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-39597-3_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-39597-3_15

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-20257-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-39597-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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