The current financial accounting system still relies on double-entry bookkeeping (DEB) and follows the debit–credit rules. The DEB system is robust and is over 500 years old.
However, over time, issues related to trust and transparency in the DEB system have emerged. This situation has led to the idea of Triple Entry Accounting (TEA) as an alternative or development of the existing accounting system.
Rizki Oktavianto, an alumnus of the Master of Science in Accounting at the Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Gadjah Mada (FEB UGM), with a concentration in Information Systems, class of 2023, examined how academics view the development of the TEA concept. The TEA concept was first introduced by accounting professor Yuji Ijiri in 1982. Ijiri proposed a recording system that not only captures financial positions but also records changes in wealth through an account called Trebit.
Several decades later, in 2005, Ian Grigg, a financial cryptography expert, developed the TEA concept in a different format, using distributed ledger technology similar to blockchain. This approach aims to improve transparency and reliability in transaction recording.
In his research titled Perspectives of Accounting and Non-Accounting Academics on Triple Entry Accounting, Rizki conducted a systematic review and content analysis of 60 scientific articles on TEA published between 2005 and 2024. The study also used the q-r theory developed by Glenn Ellison (2002) to analyze academic tendencies toward the TEA concept.
The findings show that TEA has attracted attention not only from accounting scholars but also from other disciplines. Of the 159 academics who authored the 60 analyzed articles, about 47 percent came from non-accounting backgrounds, such as information technology, cryptography, and computer science.
“From all these articles, 87% of academics prefer the technology-based TEA version proposed by Grigg, while Ijiri’s version receives less attention,” he explained in the programme ‘3 Minute Thesis’: Triple Entry Accounting, featuring Ijiri and Grigg, broadcast on the FEB UGM YouTube channel.
The study also indicates that research on TEA by accounting academics tends to focus more on r, the development of existing ideas, rather than on q, the discovery of new concepts. Joel S. Demski, in 2002, referred to this phenomenon as “research malaise,” describing a tendency among researchers to follow trends rather than to explore concepts more deeply.
According to Rizki, this tendency falls within the remit of Ellison’s Q-R theory (2002), which categorises research into two main areas. The q aspect refers to the development of new concepts or ideas that challenge previous theories, while r relates to the technical development of existing ideas.
“Research on TEA conducted by accounting academics tends to focus more on the technical development of existing ideas rather than exploring new concepts,” he said.
This phenomenon was also highlighted by Demski (2002), who described it as research malaise, referring to the tendency of researchers to follow emerging trends rather than deeply explore theoretical concepts.
Rizki believes that the differences between the TEA approaches proposed by Ijiri and Grigg actually open new opportunities for future research. Future studies could integrate conceptual ideas from the accounting field with technological approaches from cryptography to develop a more transparent and adaptive accounting system in the digital era.
The full video of the program 3 Minute Thesis: Triple Entry Accounting version Ijiri dan Grigg can be accessed via: TripleEntryAccountingVersiIjiriGrigg
Author: Kurnia Ekaptiningrum
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