Using Formal Ontologies for the Development of Consistent and Unambiguous Financial Accounting Standards

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 a conceptual framework that were developed to facilitate the reporting of financial information of entities. Due to the history of standards development as well as the mechanisms used, inconsistencies in the standards, framework and interpretations are part of the common legacy accountants are confronted with every day. The development of unambiguous and principle based financial accounting standards is therefore a key initiative at present of international accounting standards bodies such as the FASB and the IASB. This paper is concerned with the question of how recently developed computer science 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.