Double entry accounting as a representation is a domain specific language for the people working in the field and as such is very useful.
However, you might ask, is it also the right primitives to express accounting IT systems or could we think of a better domain model, and then derive the double entry ledgers from that?
This is an important and profound question.
If you would like to dive in, I suggest looking at the REA (resources, events, agents) model, a set of abstractions and patterns for expressing accounting in business systems.
The Model-Driven Design Using Business Patterns book by Hruby et al. is a great starting point. [1][2]
Also, the POETS (Process-Oriented Event-driven Transaction System) research from DIKU (Copenhagen University) is super interesting, offering some ideas for next-generation ERP systems.[3]
[3]
Fritz Henglein, Ken Friis Larsen, Jakob Grue Simonsen, Christian Stefansen. POETS: Process-Oriented Event-driven Transaction System. Journal of Logic and Algebraic Programming (JLAP), Invited submission to special Issue on Contract-Oriented Software, 78(5):381-401, 2009.
Jesper Andersen, Ebbe Elsborg, Fritz Henglein, Jakob Grue Simonsen, Christian Stefansen. Compositional specification of commercial contracts. International Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer (STTT), 8(6):485-516, November 2006.
There are more papers from DIKU on this, see e.g. prof. Henglein’s publication list :
However, you might ask, is it also the right primitives to express accounting IT systems or could we think of a better domain model, and then derive the double entry ledgers from that?
This is an important and profound question.
If you would like to dive in, I suggest looking at the REA (resources, events, agents) model, a set of abstractions and patterns for expressing accounting in business systems.
The Model-Driven Design Using Business Patterns book by Hruby et al. is a great starting point. [1][2]
Also, the POETS (Process-Oriented Event-driven Transaction System) research from DIKU (Copenhagen University) is super interesting, offering some ideas for next-generation ERP systems.[3]
[1] https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/3-540-30327-2
[2] http://phruby.com/book/index.html
[3] Fritz Henglein, Ken Friis Larsen, Jakob Grue Simonsen, Christian Stefansen. POETS: Process-Oriented Event-driven Transaction System. Journal of Logic and Algebraic Programming (JLAP), Invited submission to special Issue on Contract-Oriented Software, 78(5):381-401, 2009.
Jesper Andersen, Ebbe Elsborg, Fritz Henglein, Jakob Grue Simonsen, Christian Stefansen. Compositional specification of commercial contracts. International Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer (STTT), 8(6):485-516, November 2006.
There are more papers from DIKU on this, see e.g. prof. Henglein’s publication list :
http://hjemmesider.diku.dk/~henglein/bib/author/Fritz.Hengle...