Traditional Accounting with Decentralised Ledger Technology

Abstract

Distributed ledger technology is by some believe to be the accounting system of the future, replacing the centuries-old double-entry accounting paradigm, as it has desirable characteristics such as tamper-resistance. However, it might suffer from technology lock-in as double-entry bookkeeping, due to its long-standing history, has offered the conceptual foundations for many laws, regulations and business practices. While some of these laws, regulations and practices might become obsolete as a result of distributed ledger technology, some might still prove to be valuable in a new technological context. While aiming at unlocking the potential of distributed ledger technology in an accounting context, we also want to preserve the wisdom of accounting craftsman. For this reason, it is the aim of this paper to offer a bi-directional mapping between traditional double-entry bookkeeping and innovative paradigms that have proven their value in decentralised systems, of which distributed ledger technology is an exponent. This paper offers such a mapping for the Resource-Event-Agent paradigm.