Determining correct answers to tax and accounting issues arising from business transactions and generating accounting entries to record those transactions using a computerized predicate logic implementation

A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising computer executable instructions which when executed by a computer cause the computer to perform the method of:

• facilitate translating a plurality of pertinent authority documents, in ordinary natural language, said plurality of pertinent authority documents each comprising at least one of a tax authority and an accounting authority, into corresponding statements in a system of predicate logic;
• facilitate encoding said corresponding statements in said system of predicate logic into a plurality of relations in a programming language, said relations in said programming language comprising a set of sentences in logical form, expressing facts and rules about a corresponding pertinent problem domain;
• indexing said plurality of pertinent authority documents by rendering at least one of said pertinent authority documents and said logical statements into an electronic database to facilitate subsequent searching to locate at least one of said plurality of pertinent authority documents applicable in a given situation;
• obtaining, via a user interface, at least one of user-entered query terms and query terms derived from pertinent prose, at least one of said user-entered query terms and query terms derived from pertinent prose specifying at least one of a tax problem and an accounting problem;
• based on said at least one of user-entered query terms and query terms derived from pertinent prose, searching said electronic database to locate said at least one of said plurality of pertinent authority documents applicable in said given situation;
• responsive to said searching and locating, activating a comparison and inference engine executing on at least one hardware processor, to apply those of said plurality of relations in said programming language corresponding to said at least one of said plurality of pertinent authority documents applicable in said given situation to a problem ascertainable from said at least one of user-entered query terms and query terms derived from pertinent prose, to obtain a conclusion by applying derivation rules in said system of predicate logic;
• and
• presenting said conclusion to a decision maker, via said user interface.

An apparatus comprising:

• a memory;
• at least one hardware processor, coupled to said memory, and operative to:
• facilitate translating a plurality of pertinent authority documents, in ordinary natural language, said plurality of pertinent authority documents each comprising at least one of a tax authority and an accounting authority, into corresponding statements in a system of predicate logic;
• facilitate encoding said corresponding statements in said system of predicate logic into a plurality of relations in a programming language, said relations in said programming language comprising a set of sentences in logical form, expressing facts and rules about a corresponding pertinent problem domain;
• index said plurality of pertinent authority documents by rendering at least one of said pertinent authority documents and said logical statements into an electronic database to facilitate subsequent searching to locate at least one of said plurality of pertinent authority documents applicable in a given situation;
• obtain, via a user interface, at least one of user-entered query terms and query terms derived from pertinent prose, at least one of said user-entered query terms and query terms derived from pertinent prose specifying at least one of a tax problem and an accounting problem;
• based on said at least one of user-entered query terms and query terms derived from pertinent prose, search said electronic database to locate said at least one of said plurality of pertinent authority documents applicable in said given situation;
• responsive to said searching and locating, activate said comparison and inference engine executing on said at least one hardware processor, to apply those of said plurality of relations in said programming language corresponding to said at least one of said plurality of pertinent authority documents applicable in said given situation to a problem ascertainable from said at least one of user-entered query terms and query terms derived from pertinent prose, to obtain a conclusion by applying derivation rules in said system of predicate logic;
• and
• present said conclusion to a decision maker, via said user interface.