Open Source RDF Accounting Engine

 LodgeiT Labs has created what they are calling an open source RDF accounting engine. This YouTube video provides a glimpse.  Information that I have received says that you can get the code for this RDF accounting engine here. This YouTube playlist provides more information. (When I asked Microsoft's Copilot to generate an image of an RDF accounting engine, this is what I got below.)

This open source RDF accounting engine, apparently called "Robust" is described as follows:

"Robust is our LodgeiT experimental, open-source accounts-processing engine able to generate investment reports with realised & unrealised gain/(loss) as well as currency gain/(loss). Read more about it here - https://github.com/lodgeit-labs/accounts-assessor" 

What I would be very interested to see is my "record to report" working prototype to be run through that accounting engine. My working prototype took the transactions from the Microsoft Dynamics "The World Online" (TWO) set of demo data, output the transactions, ran them through a bunch of steps and ultimately generated a financial report.  This report is the end result.  This is the financial reporting scheme that I used.

This MINI2023 is an updated set of files. I made a few modifications to the "roll forward grouping codes".  For discussion purposes, use this report and this validation result. This report was generated from a set of general ledger transactions which I have.

The key to making all this work effectively is what I call the "roll forward grouping codes" and what LodgeiT refers to as "transaction verbs" and Workday refers to as "work tags" (for information on work tags see this and this and this and this. This information is key to getting accounting systems to do what accountants need them to do.  They enable aggregation and disaggregation of information when used properly.  Workday seems to have formalized their work tags idea in their Foundation Data Model (FDM).

Although, people seem to be missing something.  Someone said this about work tags, "The more details we can use to describe transactions, the more information we will have for reporting and decision-making."  It is not about "more".  It is about the RIGHT DETAILS, not just more junk.  It is about precision, not volume.

To set up an accounting system effectively, at the very minimum you need to establish the following:

  • Accounts (i.e. chart of accounts), these tend to be nouns
  • Account types or categories
  • Traction types or categories (what I call the roll forward grouping codes, LodgeiT calls the transaction verbs, and Workday calls work tags
  • Report line items and groupings (usually in a report writer)

To understand more, read my Effective Automation of Record to Report Process Narrative for Iteration #4 documentation.  I think I am going to create an improved version of that working prototype.

Accountants seem to be gratified by pain of the month end close.  In most cases, that pain is self-imposed or imposed by those that built the accounting information systems used.  There are better ways.

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