Classification of REA Patterns using Formal Specifications

This paper describes an approach, which uses formal specifications, for the classification of REA patterns and their building blocks. In general, classification is essential – especially when the number of patterns of a collection increases. Budgen [Bud03] stresses the need and importance of exploring and evaluating “the most effective ways to index and classify patterns.” The number of patterns increases over time, and there is always the possibility of having either duplicate patterns or patterns whose relationships can be interpreted differently if these relationships are not clearly defined. In this short paper, we describe our approach in which REA patterns are specified formally using Alloy prior to being classified in the Zachman framework. For convenient references, these REA specifications are assigned numbers.