Volume 13, Number 1, 2004
When Stephanie Simminger, BE '03, took a course in accounting information systems in the Lerner College of Business and Economics, one of the main elements was learning to use a computer-based accounting model developed by her teacher, Guido Geerts.
"The use of the model allowed us to have an interactive classroom structure," she says, adding that working with the model reminded her of solving a puzzle. "That made it fun and easy for me to learn."
Geerts, associate professor of accounting and management information systems, is one of the architects of the Resource-Event-Agent (REA) model, which is used by professionals as well as teachers around the world.
For Simminger, the experience in Geerts' class has had additional benefits beyond that semester. Now an accountant at a firm in Pennsylvania, she says her company wanted to create a type of database with which her co-workers were unfamiliar.
"Using only what I learned in that class, I was able to design the database my employer requested," Simminger says. "Looking back, I cannot imagine a better, more effective way to teach accounting information systems than through the use of the REA model."
Geerts and William E. McCarthy of Michigan State University, who created the REA model in 1982, have been collaborating on the model for about 15 years, refining it and also training other instructors in its use as a teaching tool.
The REA model is a framework for the design of enterprise systems. An enterprise system provides a model of a company, reflecting the ways it deploys its resources and people to create value and profit.
Geerts says an example is what is known as enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, such as PeopleSoft, which attempts to integrate all of a company's departments and functions into a single computer system that can serve the company's many and varied needs.
"Building a single software program that serves the needs of people in finance as well as it does the people in human resources and in the warehouse [is] a tall order," according to the Enterprise Resource Planning Research Center's web site. But, the center says, such an integrated approach "can have a tremendous payback" if properly implemented.
REA enterprise models are designed to meet the needs of a variety of decision-makers in a company, in such areas as accounting, finance, management and marketing. Geerts says ERP developers have been interested in the REA model as a starting point or blueprint for their work. Pavel Hruby of Microsoft says the REA model "has had a major influence on the design of our new generation of ERP products."
"We consider REA as the most prominent, most reliable and most tightly controlled outlet for theoretical-based accounting work in the world," Hruby says.
"A key issue I've been working on is determining what types of things should be included in the model, such as liabilities, business processes and workflow specifications," Geerts says. "In recent years, there's been a lot of interest in building reference models for accounting and for various other disciplines, as well as for specific industries. So, you start with the question: What are the best practices for that discipline or that industry? That's what you want to build into the model."
Although Geerts enjoys using his research to work with practitioners, he says, he likes using it as a teaching tool even more. In his accounting information systems classes, he shows students the basics of how to use REA and then gives them a business case in which they must use the model. One of his favorite cases involves a hypothetical Belgian chocolate company.
"The students learn to use the model for all aspects of the business-- procurement, production, sales and more, and at the same time, they learn how all those areas are linked together," Geerts says. "I teach basic business concepts, which is what most of the class deals with. My classes are very interactive and skill-oriented."
Each summer, Geerts and McCarthy hold an intensive workshop for faculty members from institutions around the world who want to learn how to use the REA model in their own classrooms. The model is considered especially useful as a teaching tool because it integrates accounting and economic theory with information systems. Teachers are using it as a unifying framework for such subjects as financial and cost accounting, value chain and business process analysis, internal controls, workflow systems and database design
"I consider Guido Geerts to be among the top five young computer-science-oriented researchers in the business area in the world," McCarthy says. He calls UD students "fortunate to have such a superbly trained scholar and enthusiastic teacher of advanced technical topics on their team."
Geerts earned his doctoral degree from the Free University of Brussels, Belgium, and was a faculty member at Michigan State University's Eli Broad College of Business before joining UD in 2000. He serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Information Systems and the International Journal of Accounting Information Systems and is co-founder of the European Conference on Accounting Information Systems.
--Ann Manser, AS '73, CHEP '73