AN INTERNET ACCOUNTING SYSTEM
A large scale software system development using model driven architecture
Kenji Ohmori
Faculty of Computer and Information Sciences, Hosei University, 3-7-2 Kajino-cho, Koganei-shi, Tokyo, Japan
Keywords: Accounting System, Model Driven Architecture, Unified Modelling Process
Abstract:
Software development should be changed from a handcraft industry to industrialization like
manufacturing to obtain high productivity. In knowledge creating industry of software
development, engineers have to concentrate on core works. Peripheral works should be avoided
as much as possible. Model driven architecture helps programmers work mainly in analysis and
design without considering much about implementation. Internet Accounting System, which is a
standard model of enterprise systems have been developed with model driven architecture with
high productivity.
1 INTRODUCTION
A big innovation is being brought about by model
driven architecture (MDA) in development of a
software system. Internet Accounting System
described in this paper has also been developed
using MDA (Mellor 2002, Raistrick 2004, Kleppe
2003, Frankel 2003). Although many accounting
systems have already been developed, most of them
are concentrated systems that are used by a limited
number of accountants. As companies are exposed
to severe competitions, it is required to sustain
accurate accounting information updated by each
transaction. In order to reply to such a request,
accounting information is necessary stored to the
accounting system where and when a transaction
occurs. Since the conventional concentrated system
scarcely responds to these requests, it is obliged to
develop a new accounting system utilizing Internet,
which includes difficult problems inherent in a
distributed system such as system configuration, a
user interface, and security are problems to be
solved.
Internet Accounting System is uncertain in
d
evelopment. We can hardly figure out if its
development leads to a success before and even
during its development. In recent years, a rational
unified process (RUP) attracts attention to
development of such software. A RUP (Jacobson
1999, Kruchten 2000) shares the same concepts with
knowledge management (Nonaka 1995) in business
administration. Unlike the water flow model
developing a system in top-down from requirements
to design, implementation and evaluation, A RUP
divides a system into portions. RUP begins by
developing a portion with the biggest risk and it
progresses gradually to development of other
portions with less risks. In development of each
portion, it will move from requirement specifications
to design, implementation and evaluation. Although
requirement specifications and design are
intellectually creative activities, implementation and
evaluation are labour-intensive work. If these phases
are realized by automatic code generation, software
development will be challenged as more
intellectually creative work, which is accomplished
by a small number of designers and programmers.
Internet Accounting System described in this paper
does not attain the level of a commercial system in
error handling. However, all the required functions
as an accounting system have been incorporated.
The system has been developed in seven months by
only single person. The successful development in
the short period and by a small number of people is
owed to automatic code generation in the
implementation phase using MDA. We could
concentrate our energies on the requirements and
design phases.
2 SYSTEM OUTLINE
On-line entry at the spot is the most important
requirement. It has been realized in a web based
407
Ohmori K. (2005).
AN INTERNET ACCOUNTING SYSTEM - A large scale software system development using model driven architecture.
In Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems, pages 407-410
DOI: 10.5220/0002553504070410
Copyright
c
 SciTePress

system, where each user is equipped with a personal
computer connected to a web server through Internet.
In this environment, a user can call a web server
through browser, get an input form, and send a filled
form to the server whenever a financial transaction
arises at his place.
This accounting system naturally includes
functions of financial accounting with a general
ledger and financial statements. It also has
administrative accounting with the management of
sector, segment and period spending and sales.
Internet Accounting System must be enough
reliable to preserve transactions safely. An
application server that provides rollback functions is
necessary for realizing Internet Accounting System.
Moreover, a database server is also necessary to
store financial and administrative accounting data
and transaction records. The hardware structure is
composed of three tiers of web, application and
database servers.
A software subsystem has been arranged for
each server. A servlet container has been provided
for the web server to support sophisticated interfaces.
It is supposed that many homepages be required to
implement the application. We also equipped the
container with a web application framework to help
a programmer implement a complicated system in
high productivity. An enterprise application
framework has been provided for the application
server. An enterprise application framework
fulfilling J2EE technology is divided into two parts:
web and database sides. In the web side, business
logic of the application is realized by receiving
requests from the servlet container and sending
results to it. The database side has interface to the
database server using an object-relational mapping.
The web side is realized by a set of session beans
and the database server is carried out by a set of
entity beans. These beans are kinds of classes. Each
entity bean corresponds to a table on the database
server. The database server is equipped with
database software.
The servlet container in this system is Tomcat
and the web application framework is Struts. Struts
needs three kinds of classes to implement a web
application. One is a JSP, which sends a homepage
to user. Another is an action program, which controls
the transition of JSPs. The other is an action form to
store data entered by a user. If a user pushes a
submit button on the current homepage, the request
Figure 1: An activity diagram
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is sent to the corresponding action program. At the
same time, data entered by the user are stored in the
corresponding action form. The action program gets
the data from the action form, processes them and
sends the result to the next JSP. It sends a new
homepage to a user and the homepage waits for new
entries form a user. The same process is repeated.
Most programs embedded in the web and
application frameworks are not coded by
programmers but generated automatically from
UML diagrams. According to requirement
specifications and design results, we have described
three kinds of diagrams using UML. Use cases
define how a user uses the application. Activity
diagrams define in which order activities of a use
case is realized. Class diagrams define what classes
are used to realize the application. Translation
software generates program codes from these
diagrams. The first homepage is created from a use
case. It allows to select other use cases. Each activity
diagram generates program codes of JSPs, action
programs and action forms. Most program codes
realizing the web application are automatically
generated except business login included in action
programs. From class diagrams, most program codes
are generated for the application server except
business logic of session beans.
We used AndroMDA to generate program codes
from UML. AndroMDA generates intermediate
diagrams for translation from these diagrams.
XDoclet scripts are generated from intermediate
diagrams. Then, XDoclet generates program codes
for the web and application servers including system
configuration files as well as database configuration
files. VSL files in AndroMDA defines how an
intermediate diagrams are translated into XDoclet
scripts for each type of namespaces. The namespaces
correspond to types of program codes such as
control, service and value object classes. As VSL
files allow customization, we added necessary
functions and modified some functions.
3 IMPLEMENTATION
The programming language used in developing the
system is Java so that the system can be installed on
almost any kind of processors and operating systems.
It can be installed on Linux, Microsoft Windows or
Mac. JBoss is used as an application server to give
persistent functions to an application program. It can
be connected to a web server and a database server.
Many database servers are connectable to JBoss
through the JDBC API. Web servers are also
connectable to JBoss though RMI (Java Remote
Method Invocation). As the system is experimental,
we are using Struts and Hypersonic SQL as a web
server and a database server, which are in-house
subsystems installed in JBoss. If the system becomes
commercial, Apache will be used as a web server
and PostgreSQL, MySQL or Oracle will be used as a
database server. JBosss has two selectable
subsystems to provide for an object-relational
mapping between J2EE technology and a relational
database. CMP (Content-Managed Persistence) is
more reliable and Hibernate is more flexible. We
have used Hibernate in this system, considering with
future development.
An example of an activity diagram is shown in
Figure 1. It is related to financial statements. The
figure consists of two swim lanes. JSPs (Java serve
pages) are automatically created from the right-hand
side lane, action programs from the left-hand. Action
forms are automatically generated from the
parameters defined at arcs connecting a right lane
node and a left one. The transition of nodes is
automatically defined by a Struts configuration file.
The figure defines the initial node and the final
one as the entrance and exit of this activity,
respectively. The next node (which is named as “ask
company and section”) connected to the initial node
sets up initial conditions. Then, the process moves
from this node to the right-hand side node (which is
named as “set company and section”). A JSP is
automatically generated from this node. It sends a
homepage as shown in Figure 2 to a user display.
Figure 2. A homepage.
AN INTERNET ACCOUNTING SYSTEM: A large scale software system development using model driven architecture
409

Table 1: Results
Total Automated Half-
automated
Hand
writing
JSPs 348 348
Action Programs 171 151 20
Action Forms 242 242
WEB
Configuration 5 5
Session Beans 78 45 34
Entity Beans 42 42
Schema 6 6
EJB
Web Service 13 13
DTO 27 27 Common
Exception 18 18
WEB 45 45
EJB 48 48
Class
Diagram
DTO 27 27
Activity Diagram 23 23
Use Case Diagram 23 23
Total 1116 897 54 166
4 EVALUATION
Table 1 shows ratios of automatically generated
classes. The number of classes in the class diagrams
becomes 120 in total. We have 23 activity diagrams.
As each use case diagram corresponds to one
activity diagram, we also have 23 use case diagrams.
From these diagrams, the number of web related
classes are 761. Among these, 741 classes are fully
automatically generated. The number of EJB related
classes except schema is 133 in total. Among these,
99 classes are fully automated. Moreover, we have
45 common programs. These are fully automated.
As consequence, the automation ratio becomes
94.2% (885/939).
5 CONCLUSIONS
Internet Accounting System has been developed
using new technologies including MDA and RUP.
The development started at the beginning of May,
when new milestone version of AndroMDA was
announced. As AndroMDA is still on the course of
development, we used nightly build versions. We
encountered to develop our application on an
unsteady and changeable platform. It results in good
experience of verifying MDA platform
independence. This experience shows that MDA is
helpful in a developing environment.
This milestone uses activity diagrams for the
first time to generate web related classes fully. As
implementation of web related control programs is
very complicated and tiresome, automatic code
generation is very helpful. It shows a new way to use
MDA.
It becomes clear that programmers can concentrate
only on business logic since other parts are
automatically generated. It leads for programmers to
help develop reliable software in a short time.
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