Gerber, MCGerber, AJVan der Merwe, AJ2012-02-272012-02-272011-11Gerber, MC, Gerber, AJ and Van der Merwe, AJ. Using formal ontologies for the development of consistent and unambiguous financial accounting standards. International Conference on Knowledge Engineering and Ontology Development, Paris, France, 26-29 November 2011978-989-8425-80-5http://hdl.handle.net/10204/5601International Conference on Knowledge Engineering and Ontology Development, Paris, France, 26-29 November 2011, pp 419-424. Copyright: 2011 SciTe PressThe 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 off financial data is regulated by financial accounting standards including a conceptual framework that we redeveloped 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 everyday. 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.enFormal ontologiesAccounting ontologiesAccounting frameworkConceptual frameworkAccounting standardsConference PresentationGerber, M., Gerber, A., & Van der Merwe, A. (2011). Using formal ontologies for the development of consistent and unambiguous financial accounting standards. SciTe Press. http://hdl.handle.net/10204/5601Gerber, MC, AJ Gerber, and AJ Van der Merwe. "Using formal ontologies for the development of consistent and unambiguous financial accounting standards." (2011): http://hdl.handle.net/10204/5601Gerber M, Gerber A, Van der Merwe A, Using formal ontologies for the development of consistent and unambiguous financial accounting standards; SciTe Press; 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10204/5601 .TY - Conference Presentation AU - Gerber, MC AU - Gerber, AJ AU - Van der Merwe, AJ AB - 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 off financial data is regulated by financial accounting standards including a conceptual framework that we redeveloped 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 everyday. 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. DA - 2011-11 DB - ResearchSpace DP - CSIR KW - Formal ontologies KW - Accounting ontologies KW - Accounting framework KW - Conceptual framework KW - Accounting standards LK - https://researchspace.csir.co.za PY - 2011 SM - 978-989-8425-80-5 T1 - Using formal ontologies for the development of consistent and unambiguous financial accounting standards TI - Using formal ontologies for the development of consistent and unambiguous financial accounting standards UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10204/5601 ER -