Design Science Applications for Evolvable Accounting Information Systems

Companies need to report financial information to different stakeholders, using multiple generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). Their Accounting Information System (AIS) needs to be able to comply with these GAAP. Since GAAP change frequently, the AIS needs to be evolvable. We use Normalized Systems Theory (NST) to adhere to the evolvability criterion. Our contribution to the problem of designing an evolvable AIS that supports multiple GAAP consists of three design processes in which we use a mixed method approach of design science and case studies. First, we identify combinatorial effects (violations of NST) in existing AIS (from case studies). To prevent these combinatorial effects, guidelines are designed in the second process. In the third process we build a prototype that serves as proof-of-concept for the developed guidelines. This study addresses the lack of domain specific guidelines to design an AIS and is the first evolvability study in AIS literature.