Conceptual modeling of accounting information systems: A comparative study of REA and ER diagrams

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. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.