“Lively history. . . . Show[s] double entry’s role in the creation of the accounting profession, and even of capitalism itself.”—The New Yorker Filled with colorful characters and history, Double Entry takes us from the ancient origins of accounting in Mesopotamia to the frontiers of modern finance. At the heart of the story is double-entry bookkeeping: the first system that allowed merchants to actually measure the worth of their businesses. Luca Pacioli—monk, mathematician, alchemist, and friend of Leonardo da Vinci—incorporated Arabic mathematics to formulate a system that could work across all trades and nations. As Jane Gleeson-White reveals, double-entry accounting was nothing short of revolutionary: it fueled the Renaissance, enabled capitalism to flourish, and created the global economy. John Maynard Keynes would use it to calculate GDP, the measure of a nation’s wealth. Yet double-entry accounting has had its failures. With the costs of sudden corporate collapses such as Enron and Lehman Brothers, and its disregard of environmental and human costs, the time may have come to re-create it for the future.
Double-entry bookkeeping (DEB), modern capitalism's first and foremost calculative technology, was "invented" during the Middle Ages when profit making was morally stigmatized. James Aho examines the problematic of moneymaking and offers an explanatory understanding of the paradoxical coupling of profit seeking and morality by situating DEB in the religious circumstances from which it emerged, specifically the newly instituted sacrament of penance, that is, confession. Confession impacted the consciences of medieval businessmen both through its sacramental form and through its moral teachings. The form of confession produced widespread habits of moral scrupulosity (leading to compulsive record keeping); the content of confession taught that commerce itself was morally suspect. Scrupulous businessmen were thus driven to justify their affairs to church, commune, and themselves. With the aid of DEB, moneymaking was "Christianized" and Christianity was made more amenable to the pursuit of wealth. Although DEB is typically viewed exclusively as a scientifically neutral account of the flow of money through a firm, it remains as it was originally devised, a rhetorical argument.
Caitlin Rosenthal explores quantitative management practices on West Indian and Southern plantations, showing how planter-capitalists built sophisticated organizations and used complex accounting tools. By demonstrating that business innovation can be a byproduct of bondage Rosenthal further erodes the false boundary between capitalism and slavery.
Excerpt from Modern Bookkeeping Accounting and Business Practice This book contains a carefully graded series of lessons in Bookkeeping, Accounting and Business Practice. The lessons are made so plain and are illustrated so fully that even a child can understand them. Any person of average intelligence, without any previous knowledge of Bookkeeping can become a fully competent double entry bookkeeper by mastering these lessons, provided he is proficient in Arithmetic and Penmanship or makes himself proficient in these subjects. In order that the student may easily and quickly acquire a practical working knowledge of Double Entry Bookkeeping, he is taught the principles in the following order: First. How to keep the Cash Book; - when to debit cash, when to credit cash, what explanations to use; how to balance cash daily, how to open and keep a bank account, and how to reconcile the bank balance. Second. When to debit and when to credit Personal accounts, Property accounts, Expense accounts, and the principle of Double Entry Bookkeeping. Third. How to keep the Journal; what to enter in the Journal and what in the Cash Book; how to Post; how to take a Trial Balance; the proper forms of Bills or Invoices and Statements; the importance of Collections and how to make them. Fourth. How to Open a New Set of Books and how to keep Stock accounts. Fifth. How to keep Private accounts; the Loss and Gain account; how to make up a Six Column Statement; and how to Close a Set of Books. Sixth. About Notes and Drafts; how to keep a Bills Receivable account and a Bills Payable account; how to keep the Bill Book; how to keep an Interest and Discount account. Seventh. About the indexing of the Ledger, the arrangement of accounts in the Ledger, the use of a General Ledger, a Sales Ledger and a Purchase Ledger. Eighth. About the use of Columnar Books; the use of a Sales Book, an Invoice Book, and a Petty Cash Book. Ninth. About the subdivision of the Merchandise account; - the Merchandise Purchases account; the Cash Discount on Purchases account; the Purchases Returned account; the Freight Inward account; the Merchandise Sales account; the Cash Discount on Sales account; the Sales Returned account and the Freight Outward account. Tenth. About Partnerships, Leases, and Fire Insurance. Eleventh. How to keep Controlling accounts; how to use the Bill Book as a book of original entry. Twelfth. How to keep books by Single Entry and how to change books from Single Entry to Double Entry. Thirteenth. How to do bookkeeping for a Commission business; about Shipments and Consignments; the use of the Receiving Book, the Consignment Ledger, the Customers Ledger, the General Ledger, and the Account Sales. Fourteenth. Corporation bookkeeping; Capital Stock account; Unissued Stock account; Subscribed Stock account; Subscribers account; Treasury Stock account; Undivided Profits account; Dividend account; Surplus account; the Minute Book; the Stock Ledger; the Dividend Book. Fifteenth. The Voucher System, with forms for the Voucher Book and the Voucher Register. Sixteenth. Profit and Loss Statements and Balance Sheets. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
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