Issue 273: Business transactions

ID: 
273
Starting Date: 
2015-02-05
Working Group: 
3
Status: 
Done
Closing Date: 
2016-12-09
Background: 

Posted by Dan Matei  5/2/2015

Dear all

I have to state a "simple" fact: "The object X is purchased with Y euro."

I found the 2011 discussion between Vladimir Alexiev and Stephen Stead on this topic:
http://lists.ics.forth.gr/pipermail/crm-sig/2011-November/001693.html

I'm not quite happy with their conclusion

Two issues:

A. The relationship between the purchasing event and the money paid

I think that the natural relationship between the crm:E8_Acquisition and the amount paid (Y) is crm:P16_used_specific_object.

[P16 SN: This property describes the use of material or immaterial things in a way essential to the performance or the outcome of an E7 Activity.]

The money is "essential to the performance" of the acquisition, no ?

B. Which is the right class of the "money" ?

B.1. The amount is a crm: E72_Legal_Object, right ?

[E72 SN: This class comprises those material or immaterial items to which instances of E30 Right, such as the right of ownership or use, can be
applied.]

Rights apply to money, right ?

So, my (first) solution is:

[
    {
        "@id": "#X",
        "@type": "crm:E22_Man-Made_Object",
        "statement": {
            "@id": "#s1",
            "predicate": "crm:P24i_changed_ownership_through",
            "object": "#purchase"
        }
    },
    {
        "@id": "#purchase",
        "@type": "crm:E8_Acquisition",
        "statement": {
            "@id": "#s2",
            "predicate": "crm:P16_used_specific_object",
            "predicateQualifier": "#amountPaid",
            "object": "#price"
        }
    },
    {
        "@id": "#price",
        "@type": "crm:E72_Legal_Object",
        "statement": [
            {
                "@id": "#s3",
                "predicate": "crm:P2_has_type",
                "object": "#currency"
            },
            {
                "@id": "#s4",
                "predicate": "crm:P43_has_dimension",
                "object": "#amount"
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "@id": "#amount",
        "@type": "crm:E54_Dimension",
        "statement": [
            {
                "@id": "#s5",
                "predicate": "crm:P2_has_type",
                "object": "#sum"
            },
            {
                "@id": "#s6",
                "predicate": "crm:P90_has_value",
                "object": {
                    "@value": "Y",
                    "@type": "xsd:integer"
                }
            },
            {
                "@id": "#s7",
                "predicate": "crm:P91_has_unit",
                "object": "#euro"
            }
        ]
    }
]

A bit long... And the entity #price do not tells much.

B.2. An amount of money is not an instance of crm: E54_Dimension ?

[E54 SN: An instance of E54 Dimension represents the true quantity, independent from its numerical approximation, e.g. in inches or in cm.]

A sum of money is not "a true quantity" ? I'm inclined to the affirmative. So, if I understand correctly the E54, I could use a double instantiation and
shorten a bit my solution:

[
    {
        "@id": "#X",
        "@type": "crm:E22_Man-Made_Object",
        "statement": {
            "@id": "#s1",
            "predicate": "crm:P24i_changed_ownership_through",
            "object": "#purchase"
        }
    },
    {
        "@id": "#purchase",
        "@type": "crm:E8_Acquisition",
        "statement": {
            "@id": "#s2",
            "predicate": "crm:P16_used_specific_object",
            "predicateQualifier": "#amountPaid",
            "object": "#price"
        }
    },
    {
        "@id": "#price",
        "@type": [
            "crm:E72_Legal_Object",
            "crm:E54_Dimension"
        ],
        "statement": [
            {
                "@id": "#s3",
                "predicate": "crm:P2_has_type",
                "object": [
                    "#currency",
                    "#sum"
                ]
            },
            {
                "@id": "#s4",
                "predicate": "crm:P90_has_value",
                "object": {
                    "@value": "Y",
                    "@type": "xsd:integer"
                }
            },
            {
                "@id": "#s5",
                "predicate": "crm:P91_has_unit",
                "object": "#euro"
            }
        ]
    }
]

I.e. the amount of money is in the same time an instance of E72 AND E54.

Is that legitimate ?
 

Posted by Steve Stead    6/2/2015

Dan
I stick by my original points.
It is not P16 used specific object unless you want to refer to a particular
coin or note ie this is the coin that was used to buy the pen that was used
to sign the treaty.

 

Posted by Martin 6/2/2015

Dear All,

I think the issue of business transactions with monetary exchange and other
exchange goods is overdue.
In order to address this in CRM-SIG, we need a some database schema/ data structure
in scope we can take as empirical material.
I believe acquisition of museum objects is one area of application. Another, I was
just recently pointed to, is transcription of Bronce Age texts.

Please propose as many data structures as possible to study requirements.

Posted by Dominic Oldman 6/2/2015

I have sent the BM models and interface.

It is stuck in the list because of the size of attachement.
 

Posted by Dan Matei  7/2/2015

Sorry Martin...

-----Original Message-----
From: "Dan Matei" <Dan@cimec.ro>
To: "martin" <martin@ics.forth.gr>
Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2015 12:55:49 +0200
Subject: Re: [Crm-sig] Money, money, money...

Friends.

-----Original Message-----
From: martin <martin@ics.forth.gr>
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2015 14:00:06 +0200

> In order to address this in CRM-SIG, we need a some database schema/
> data structure
> in scope we can take as empirical material.
> I believe acquisition of museum objects is one area of application.

Our use-case has nothing fancy. The Romanian museums have to record for an acquisition:

• the type (purchase, donation, field collection, etc.);
• the date;
• the provider (seller, donor, finder, etc.);
• the amount paid (in case of purchase);
• obligations (e.g. to expose);
• the legal proof document.

Until you come-up with a refined solution, I accept Steve criticism and I consider a brute force solution 

I borrow from the Financial Industry Business Ontology [FIBO] (http://www.omg.org/spec/EDMC-FIBO/FND/):

The classes:
• fibo:Money_Amount (considered a subclass of crm:E72_Legal_Object);
• fibo:Currency (considered a subclass of crm: E55_Type).

The properties:
• fibo:has_amount/is_amount_of (fibo:Money_Amount -> xsd:decimal);
• fibo:has_currency/is_currency_of (fibo:Money_Amount -> fibo:Currency).

And I "invent" the property:

• paid/paid-for (crm:E8_Acquisition -> fibo:Money_Amount) (not very happy with the English wording

Critical comments, please...

Dan

Posted by Martin 7/2/2015

Sounds quite reasonable to me!

Current Proposal: 

In the  32nd joined meeting of the CIDOC CRM SIG and ISO/TC46/SC4/WG9 and the 25th FRBR - CIDOC CRM Harmonization meeting, we decide

(a) to make a proposal for business transactions and this will be added to the extension for Spectrum. 

(b) to check if he purchase price that comes out of an agreement could be considered  as a result of observation? George, Steve, Dominic, Gordon should elaborate an answer in the view of the above.(see the discussion notes)

(c) to separate this issue into three different issues:

  i.  a general model in cultural historical studies of economy and factors (Nicolas Carboni, Terhi Nurmikko-Fuller, MD, Mathew Vincent)

  ii.Financial transactions

 iii. Coins and banknotes as artistic objects having industrial production.

 

Oxford, February 2015


In   34th  joined meeting of the CIDOC CRM SIG and ISO/TC46/SC4/WG9 and the 27th FRBR - CIDOC CRM Harmonization meeting, the CRM-SIG decided to put the proposed model in the CRM CORE. The proposed model can be found here

Crete, Heraklion, October 2015

Posted by Martin on 17/2/2016

Here my naive attempts to define purchase etc., may be some financial
or legal experts can check or improve...
 

E?? Purchase

 

Subclass of:                 E8 Acquisition

Superclass of:            

 

Scope note:                This class comprises transfers of legal ownership from one or more instances of E39 Actor to one or more other instances of E39 Actor, which are completely compensated by payment of a monetary amount. In more detail, a purchase contract initiates a monetary obligation of the receiving party of the transferred objects to the giving party. An instance of Exx Purchase begins with the contract or equivalent agreement and ends with the successful transfer of the monetary amount to the giving party. In case the activity is abandoned before both parties have fulfilled their contractual obligations, the activity is not regarded as an instance of Exx Purchase.

 

                                      This class is a very specific case of much more complex social business practices of exchange of good and the creation and satisfaction of related social obligations, which may be described by a compatible extension of this model. Purchase activities which define individual sales prices per object can be modelled by instantiating Exx Purchase for each object individually and as part of an overall transaction.

Properties:

P?? had sales price (was sales price of)): E?? Monetary Amount

E?? Monetary Amount

Subclass of:                 E54 Dimension (Later, E54 Dimension has to be generalized to "Quantity")

Scope note:                This class comprises quantities of monetary possessions or obligations in terms of their nominal value with respect to a particular currency. These quantities may be abstract accounting units, the nominal value of a heap of coins or banking notes  at the time of validity of the respective currency, the nominal value of a bill of exchange or other documents expressing monetary claims or obligations.

 

Properties:

P?? has currency (was_currency_of): E?? Currency

   P?? has amount : E60 Number

E?? Currency

Subclass of:                 E55 Type

Scope note:                This class comprises the units in which a monetary system supported by an administrational authority or other community quantifies and compares all monetary amounts declared in on such unit arithmetically. The unit of a monetary system must describe a nominal value which is kept constant by its authority and an associated banking system, and not by market value. For instance, one may pay with grams of gold, but the respective monetary amount may be agreed on as the gold price in US dollars the day of the payment. Under this definition, British pounds, U.S. dollars, and European euros are examples of currency, but “grams of gold” are not. One monetary system has only one currency. Instances of this class must not be confused with coin denominations, such as “Dime” or “Sestertius”. Non-monetary exchange of values in terms of quantities of a particular type of goods, such as cows, do not constitute a currency.                                     

Examples:       “As” (Roman mid republic), “Euro”, “US Dollar” 


Posted by Dan Matei on 17/2/2016

Oh ! For me that would be very useful...

I would like to avoid:

fibo:Currency

fibo:Money_Amount

http://www.omg.org/spec/EDMC-FIBO/

Sursum corda !


Posted by Siegfried on 18/2/2016

Dear Martin, dear all,

I do not agree with the restriction that an E8 Acquisition depends only on a compensation of money between two actors.

In our museum an acquisition is triggered by  gifts , bequests , loans, inheritance , exchange of objects. In every case we will have a contract between two parties. So an acquisition is a necessary cloudy term which stands for different kind of contracts, which could be specialized but which have always in common, that the legal ownership is transferred.


Posted by Daria Hookk on 18/2/2016

In museum practice always the way of acquisition (gift, purshase, excavatioh of an expedition...) is mentioned in contract and also, later in computer systems, because these data are collected by Russian Ministery of Culture for annual statistic report.


Posted by George on 18/2/2016

Daria and Siegfried’s description of actual museum practice is absolutely correct. 

That being said, to my reading of the scope note, the intention of the proposed Purchase class is as a specific sub class extension to allow the modelling of acquisitions with this particular monetary-exchange character. All other types of acquisition, I assume, would continue to be modelled using the E8 Acquisition construct (no change and no commitment to notion that monetary exchange entailed). The scope note of the proposed class seems to specifically pick out that this is only one very limited type of action within a range of exchange relations which are not thereby modelled. The class would, however, to my opinion, allow for the pragmatic documentation of something which is not an uncommon event in actual museum practice, allowing better granularity of representation with regards to what is no doubt a highly pragmatically important subject (i.e.: money).

I believe if this is the correct reading of the proposed class, it should cause no theoretical problem to the existing modelling using E8 Acquisition.


Posted by  Daria Hookk                       on 18/2/2016

For example,
purshase can be during expedition (ethnography), there are money but way of acquisition - from expedition. And document of relations - between expedition and museum while monetary exchage was provided by mediator.

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Posted by Martin on 18/2/2106

Dear Daria,

Nice use case! Do you mean, the expedition is organized by the museum, and the expedition team
bought objects from some people, or the expedition as a consortium sells to the museum?
In both cases, an instance of Purchase, which is also an instance of Acquisition, can have additional
parties "caried out by" "in the role of" "Mediator"?

In the 35th joined meeting of the CIDOC CRM SIG and   28th FRBR - CIDOC CRM Harmonization meeting, the crm-sig incorporated the definition of the  classes: E96 Purchase, E97 Monetary Amount, E98 Currency  into the CIDOC CRM version 6.2.2 . Pending issues are the definition of the properties

E96 Purchase.P179  had sales price (was sales price of):E97 Monetary Amount,

E97 Monetary Amount.P180 has currency (was_currency_of): E98 Currency

E97 Monetary Amount.P181 has amount: E60 Number

whether Monetary Amount is quantity or measure.

Prato, February 2016

 

 In the 36th joined meeting of the CIDOC CRM SIG and ISO/TC46/SC4/WG9 and the 29th FRBR - CIDOC CRM Harmonization meeting, the crm-sig discusssed about  financial transactions reviewed the proposal made by Steve. The outcome of the discussion is described in the Steve's document. It remains open the subproperty of  P179 had sales price (was sales price of).  

Heraklio, August 2016

Outcome: 

In the 37th joined meeting of the CIDOC CRM SIG and ISO/TC46/SC4/WG9 and the 30th   FRBR - CIDOC CRM Harmonization meeting, The crm-sig discussed the pending issues in P179 and E98 and made minor changes.

The issue is closed.

Berlin, December 2016

Meetings discussed: