computers Article An Applying Colored Petri Net for Computerized Accounting System and Ledger Accounts Instruction Chanon Dechsupa 1 , Wiwat Vatanawood 1, *, Worawit Poolsawasdi 2 and Arthit Thongtak 1   Citation: Dechsupa, C.; Vatanawood, W.; Poolsawasdi, W.; Thongtak, A. An Applying Colored Petri Net for Computerized Accounting System and Ledger Accounts Instruction. Computers 2021, 10, 169. https:// doi.org/10.3390/computers10120169 Academic Editor: Paolo Bellavista Received: 17 October 2021 Accepted: 8 December 2021 Published: 12 December 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 Department of Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10300, Thailand; chanon.d@chula.ac.th (C.D.); arthit.t@chula.ac.th (A.T.) 2 Faculty of Science and Art, Chanthaburi Campus, Burapha University, Chanthaburi 22170, Thailand; worawit@buu.ac.th * Correspondence: wiwat@chula.ac.th Abstract: Many learners who are not familiar with the accounting terms find blended learning very complex to understand with respect to the computerized accounting system, the journal entries process, and tracing the accounting transaction flows of accounting system. A simulation-based model is a viable option to help instructors and learners make understanding the accounting system components and monitoring the accounting transactions easier. This paper proposes a colored Petri net (CPN)-based model for the instruction of an accounting system focused on the journal entries processes, accounting modules, and accounting transaction flows. The CPN-based language and the model checking tool named CPN are used to represent the accounting system components: a chart of accounts, an account mapping profile, the journal and ledgers system, and the financial report creations. We evaluated the designed CPN models by creating the simulation cases from ground truth data of the retail department store system and the mortgage loan system, using the decision-table-based testing technique. The results show that the designed CPN model and provided simulation cases help the learners to animate, verify, trace back accounting transactions and data flows, and increase the learner’s understanding. Keywords: model-based simulation; model-based instruction; computerized accounting system; formal model; colored petri net; ledger account 1. Introduction Graphical representation and simulation are a viable method for instruction on com- plex systems. In the computerized accounting system course and accounting information system course, learners are required to know the fundamentals of an accounting system about a chart of accounts, account mapping profile, accounting transaction flows, and related financial reports. The core course objectives of the accounting system course are that the learners will be able to identify the accounting modules correctly and should be able to perform the journal entries and describe the financial reports precisely. The learners try to understand the principles of accounting systems, especially in the accounting system components, the general ledger accounts, and the journal entries process. They learn these topics in lecture classes and test the journal entries by using the computerized accounting system. However, some accounting processes in the computerized accounting system are transparent. The heterogeneous financial transactions and many accounting processes are performed automatically, and it is difficult to trace the financial transactions elaborately even if the learners have computing and accounting skills. They can consolidate the process outcomes from the financial reports only. Model-based instruction can be applied to increase the learner understanding because the model represents the accounting components in graphical representation. It can also simulate accounting system behaviors flows and objects containing a collection of the Computers 2021, 10, 169. https://doi.org/10.3390/computers10120169 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/computers