{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp09_archetype_breadth150_20260804","cell_id":"decoupling_via_interface__accounting_auditing","arm":"BREADTH_PROBE_ONE_SHOT","candidate_id":"decoupling_via_interface__accounting_auditing__P1","proposal_index":1,"version":0,"title":"Versioned Audit-Evidence Interface for ERP-Independent Testing","problem":"During recurring financial-statement audits, audit procedures and evidence requests become directly coupled to a client's current ERP tables, report layouts, chart-of-accounts codes, and extraction routines. When the client changes systems, configurations, or report internals, auditors must reinterpret fields and rebuild tests even when the underlying assertion and business event are unchanged. This creates rework and a risk that superficially similar replacement fields carry different accounting meanings.","actors":["Client financial controller","Client ERP or data-reporting team","External audit engagement team","Audit data specialist","Engagement partner responsible for the audit opinion"],"observable_state":"Audit workpapers, sampling routines, and request lists refer directly to client-specific table names, report columns, account codes, or undocumented extraction steps; an ERP or configuration change triggers revised requests, manual field mapping, and test redevelopment despite an unchanged audit assertion.","consequence":"System-level changes propagate into audit execution, consuming audit and client effort and increasing the chance of omitted records, duplicated records, changed populations, or semantically incorrect mappings that can undermine the sufficiency and appropriateness of audit evidence.","affected_objective":"Obtain traceable, semantically consistent audit evidence for a defined financial-statement assertion while containing avoidable procedure changes caused solely by changes in the client's internal accounting-system implementation.","intervention":"For one audit area, place a versioned audit-evidence interface between the client's accounting systems and the auditor's tests. The interface contract defines a canonical evidence packet in accounting terms—event identity, posting identity, amount, currency, relevant dates, account classification, reversal or adjustment links, source-system provenance, population boundaries, extraction timestamp, and control totals—plus validation and exception behavior. A client-side adapter translates current ERP records into that packet. Auditor procedures consume only the contracted packet. Changes behind either side are absorbed by its adapter unless they alter a contracted meaning, in which case a version change, documented reconciliation, and auditor approval are required.","structural_mapping":[{"archetype_element":"Directly coupled components","domain_realization":"Auditor tests and client ERP-specific schemas, reports, codes, and extraction routines."},{"archetype_element":"Stable interface contract","domain_realization":"A versioned specification for the audit population, field meanings, provenance, control totals, validation rules, exceptions, and permitted values."},{"archetype_element":"Boundary and encapsulation","domain_realization":"The client may change internal systems or report construction without exposing those internals to audit procedures, provided the contracted accounting meanings and reconciliations remain satisfied."},{"archetype_element":"Translation layer","domain_realization":"A client-side mapping converts ERP-specific records and codes into the canonical audit-evidence packet while retaining source references needed for traceability."},{"archetype_element":"Managed interface evolution","domain_realization":"Semantic changes require a new interface version, compatibility note, reconciliation, and explicit audit-team acceptance before use."},{"archetype_element":"Preserved necessary interaction","domain_realization":"Auditors retain access to population definitions, source provenance, exceptions, control totals, and underlying records needed to challenge evidence rather than receiving an opaque summary."}],"mechanism_mapping":[{"mechanism_slug":"interface_contract","role":"Defines the accounting meaning, completeness boundary, validation rules, lineage, and error behavior on which both client extraction and auditor testing may rely.","counterfactual_removal":"Without the contract, the packet becomes another undocumented report and auditors remain dependent on tacit client-system assumptions."},{"mechanism_slug":"adapter_layer","role":"Maps each client system's internal representation to the stable evidence packet and absorbs implementation changes that do not change contracted semantics.","counterfactual_removal":"Without the adapter, every auditor procedure must interpret ERP-specific fields directly, so internal system changes continue to propagate."},{"mechanism_slug":"stable_interface_layer","role":"Provides the sole supported input surface for the selected auditor tests, with explicit versions and a controlled transition rule.","counterfactual_removal":"Without a stable consumption surface, tests can retain hidden direct dependencies on reports, tables, or account codes outside the contract."}],"causal_chain":["Auditor procedures directly reference volatile ERP internals and undocumented interpretations.","A versioned interface narrows the dependency to explicit accounting meanings, population boundaries, provenance, and validation behavior.","A client-side adapter translates ERP-specific data into that interface and exposes mapping exceptions and reconciliation totals.","Contract validation detects missing identifiers, invalid values, broken lineage, duplicate events, and control-total mismatches before audit testing.","Auditor tests operate against the stable packet while retaining drill-back references for challenge and corroboration.","Internal ERP changes that preserve the contract are handled inside the adapter rather than forcing test redevelopment.","Changes that alter accounting meaning become visible as interface-version events requiring reconciliation and approval.","Consequently, implementation-driven change propagation can decline without treating the interface packet as sufficient evidence by itself."],"baseline":"The audit team issues recurring prepared-by-client requests and receives native ERP exports or reports. Audit staff manually interpret client-specific fields, reconcile populations, and tailor spreadsheets, scripts, and sampling logic to each current extraction. Changes are handled through revised instructions and workpaper updates.","nearest_rivals":["A more detailed prepared-by-client request list, which clarifies deliverables but can still expose auditor procedures to ERP-specific layouts and codes.","A centralized audit data warehouse, which copies and normalizes data but does not decouple the parties unless its accounting semantics, lineage, validation, and version behavior form an explicit contract.","Robotic automation of the client's existing report exports, which reduces extraction labor but preserves dependence on the reports' internal structure and undocumented meanings.","Reperforming custom data mapping for every system change, which can address each transition but does not create a stable dependency boundary."],"remaining_contrastive_claim":"The candidate's distinguishing feature is not standardized formatting or automated extraction alone; it makes the auditor's supported dependency an explicit, versioned accounting-semantic contract and assigns ERP-specific variation to a replaceable adapter, while preserving reconciliation and source drill-back outside the abstraction when audit judgment requires them.","authority_safety":{"decision_authority":"The engagement partner retains authority over whether evidence is sufficient and appropriate; the client controller authorizes client data extraction, and neither the interface designer nor the adapter operator may make those determinations.","authorized_first_step":"The audit manager and client controller may authorize a shadow-mode pilot for one transaction population in which the packet is compared with, but does not replace, the approved evidence process.","excluded_actions":["Using the packet as the sole basis for an audit conclusion during the pilot","Changing journal entries, account classifications, source records, or client controls","Allowing the adapter to suppress, impute, or silently coerce failed records","Treating successful schema validation as proof of transaction validity or control effectiveness","Removing auditor access to source documents, underlying records, reconciliations, or contradictory evidence","Changing a field definition or population boundary without versioning and approval"],"halt_rollback":"Stop the pilot if control totals do not reconcile, source drill-back fails, field meanings are disputed, material classes of records cannot be represented, or validation exceptions are silently lost. Revert the affected procedure to the existing approved evidence path, preserve both outputs and exception logs, and make no audit reliance on the packet."},"negative_tests":{"strongest_counterevidence":"After an ERP or configuration change, auditor procedures still require substantial direct knowledge of new tables, reports, codes, or extraction logic despite an unchanged contract, showing abstraction leakage or false decoupling.","problem_falsifier":"Review of recent audit changes shows that procedure rework was driven mainly by changed assertions, risks, regulations, or business processes rather than by propagation of ERP implementation changes; the posited dependency problem would then be weak or absent.","intervention_falsifier":"In a shadow comparison, the interface packet cannot reproduce the baseline population and control totals, preserve source lineage and accounting meaning, or allow the same test logic to run after a simulated adapter substitution without uncontracted changes.","risks":["Translation loss may omit context relevant to audit judgment.","A formally valid packet may conceal an incorrect or incomplete source extraction.","Semantic drift may cause client and auditor to interpret a field differently.","A poor contract may ossify and impede necessary audit changes.","Multiple versions or client-specific extensions may create adapter sprawl.","The interface may become a bottleneck near reporting deadlines.","Hidden direct dependencies may persist in spreadsheets or workpapers.","Added design, validation, and governance work may exceed avoided rework.","Concentrating transformation logic in the adapter may create fraud or error opportunities if mapping changes lack segregation and review."]},"next_evidence_step":"Run a bounded, non-reliance shadow test on one completed audit area's transaction population: define one versioned packet, map a frozen source extract through one adapter, and execute one existing population-level test plus a maximum of 30 selected-item drill-backs. Record reconciliation differences, validation exceptions, lost meanings, hidden ERP references required by the auditor, and whether the unchanged test runs after a controlled renaming or restructuring of source fields. The engagement team reviews results before any decision to expand or rely on the interface.","prior_art_status":"UNSEARCHED","diversity_from_prior_proposals":"No other experiment candidates or proposals were inspected or used; this one-shot candidate is derived only from the supplied archetype record and accounting-and-auditing domain card.","revision_record":{"parent_version":null,"progress_targets_addressed":[],"conceptual_changes":[],"operational_changes":[],"evidence_changes":[],"claim_changes":[]}}