The project aims to develop a standard model and business standard for accounting journal books. The new standard will fulfil accounting requirements in the production of accounting books with respect to generally admitted accounting principles. 

Accounting entries record a broad range of business events, consumption of resources or actions by agents. They are organised and logged in either a general journal or, more frequently, in several specialised sub-journals. Examples of journals include purchase, sales, bank, inventory, fixed assets and more, according to the organisation of the accounts.

The scope of this project is to build a standard accounting book, sorted by journals, as needed for bookkeeping, accounting and auditing practices. A special attention is drawn to the archival of accounting books.

As such the project will complement the existing UN/CEFACT business standards for accounting that cater for entries sorted by vouchers, periods, and by accounts. The new standard will enable exchanges sorted by journals.

The standard accounting book will be available to, and usable by all businesses activities. The project covers business of any sizes, in-house as well as outsourced accounting processing. It can support national, regional and international requirements, independent companies and conglomerate, and concerns all activity domains.

The project deliverables include:

• An information note on requirements gathering which assesses the need for the project in terms of the collective interests of UN member States and other stakeholders with respect to the domain of accounting; and indicates that there is no duplication of effort which would prevent the project from proceeding as proposed.

• A Business Requirement Specifications (BRS) document containing the Business Process Models to cover the scope

• A requirement specification mapping (RSM) document with class diagrams to the describing the message structures for the accounting transactions

• XML schemas to implement said messages structures in accounting transactions

• If necessary: ABIEs, BBIEs and CCs based on UN/CEFACT Core Component Technical Specifications

• A report on implementation verification that summarises the experience of early implementers. The report aims to assist with the implementation of the standard

The project will reach the exit phase after delivering the following:

• The project deliverables, as specified in the “Project deliverables” section
• Public review and logs showing how comments have been addressed for each of the project deliverables (BRS, RSM, XML Schemas and ABIEs, BBIEs and CCs and early implementation report).

Membership is open to experts with broad knowledge in the area of accounting. Specific experience with the existing UN/CEFACT business standards for accounting is welcomed.

Experts are expected to contribute to the project solely on the basis of their competencies and to comply with the UN/CEFACT Code of Conduct and UN/CEFACT Intellectual Property Rights Policy.

The project team will initially involve:

• Benoît Marchal [email protected]
• Frederique Danjon [email protected]

List at least three Country heads of delegation who support this project, and include their written expression of support using the template in annex IV...
• France, Benoît Blary
• Sweden, Johan Ponten
• Austria, Christian Huemer

The focus is global and cross-sectorial within the functional area of accounting and auditing business data.

The following contributions are submitted as part of this proposal. It is understood that these contributions are only for consideration by the project team and that other participants may submit additional contributions in order to ensure that as much information as possible is obtained from those with expertise and a material interest in the project.

• Data Dictionary and Data Model for exchanged information

Participants in the project shall provide resources for their own participation. The existence and functioning of the project shall not require any additional resources from the UNECE secretariat.

Note to user: Participants in the project shall provide resources for their own participation. If no additional resources are required, then a short statement indicating this should be included. However, if specialized resources are required to complete the project, and such resources are not available within the project team, then those requirements should be clearly identified. It is preferred that the existence and functioning of the project shall not require any additional resources from the UNECE secretariat.

Project Leader: Benoît Marchal
Editors: Frederique Danjon