Discussion of Modeling Conversion Process Events.

This article comments on the article "Modeling Conversion Process Events," by Eric L. Denna, Jon Jasperson, Kenny Fong, and David Middleman, published in the present issue of the "Journal of Information Systems." This type of analysis is the way information systems should be designed and implemented. The market comprises those within and outside the organization that use accounting and other information to support their decision making: managers and investors. Two identifiable and complementary advances motivate this perspective: one internal organization technological advance and one external organization technological advance. The internal advance is the increased orientation toward a database approach to managing data and information within the organization, that is, an orientation that a single centralized and controlled store of data can support all the information needs of decision makers. Accountants must overcome their fixation with financially based transactions and focus on business events. Traditional accounting systems record only transactions that have a financially quantifiable amount.