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History of accounting

The history of accounting or accountancy can be traced to


ancient civilizations.[1][2][3]

The early development of accounting dates to ancient


Mesopotamia, and is closely related to developments in writing,
counting and money[1][4][5] and early auditing systems by the
ancient Egyptians and Babylonians.[2] By the time of the Roman
Empire, the government had access to detailed financial
information.[6]

In India Chanakya wrote a manuscript similar to a financial


management book, during the period of the Mauryan Empire.
His book "Arthashasthra" contains few detailed aspects of Portrait of Luca Pacioli, attributed to
maintaining books of accounts for a Sovereign State. Jacopo de' Barbari, 1495, (Museo di
Capodimonte).
The Italian Luca Pacioli, recognized as The Father of accounting
and bookkeeping was the first person to publish a work on
double-entry bookkeeping, and introduced the field in Italy.[7][8]

The modern profession of the chartered accountant originated in Scotland in the nineteenth century.
Accountants often belonged to the same associations as solicitors, who often offered accounting services to
their clients. Early modern accounting had similarities to today's forensic accounting. Accounting began to
transition into an organized profession in the nineteenth century,[9] with local professional bodies in England
merging to form the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales in 1880.[10]

Contents
Ancient history
Early development of accounting
Expansion of the role of the accountant
Roman empire
Medieval and renaissance periods
Double-entry bookkeeping
The Renaissance cultural context
Financial and management accounting
Modern professional accounting
See also
References
Further reading
United States
Historiography
External links
Ancient history

Early development of accounting

Accounting records dating back more than 7,000 years have been found in
Mesopotamia,[11] and documents from ancient Mesopotamia show lists of
expenditures, and goods received and traded.[1] The development of
accounting, along with that of money and numbers, may be related to the
taxation and trading activities of temples:

"another part of the explanation as to why accounting employs


the numerical metaphor is [...] that money, numbers and
accounting are interrelated and, perhaps, inseparable in their
origins: all emerged in the context of controlling goods, stocks
and transactions in the temple economy of Mesopotamia."[1]

Globular envelope (known The early development of accounting was closely related to developments in
as a Bulla) with a cluster of writing, counting, and money. In particular, there is evidence that a key step in
accountancy tokens, Uruk the development of counting—the transition from concrete to abstract
period, 4000-3100 B.C.E, counting—was related to the early development of accounting and money and
from Susa. Louvre Museum took place in Mesopotamia[1]

Other early accounting records were also found in the ruins of ancient
Babylon, Assyria and Sumer, which date back more than 7,000 years. The people of that time relied on
primitive accounting methods to record the growth of crops and herds. Because there was a natural season to
farming and herding, it was easy to count and determine if a surplus had been gained after the crops had been
harvested or the young animals weaned.[11]

Expansion of the role of the accountant

Between the 4th millennium BC and the 3rd millennium BC, the ruling leaders and priests in ancient Iran had
people oversee financial matters. In Godin Tepe (‫ )ﮔﺪﯾﻦ ﺗﭙﻪ‬and Tepe Yahya (‫)ﺗﭙﻪ ﻳﺤﻴﯽ‬, cylindrical tokens that
were used for bookkeeping on clay scripts were found in buildings that had large rooms for storage of crops.
In Godin Tepe's findings, the scripts only contained tables with figures, while in Tepe Yahya's findings, the
scripts also contained graphical representations.[4] The invention of a form of bookkeeping using clay tokens
represented a huge cognitive leap for mankind.[5]

During the 2nd millennium BC,[12] the expansion of commerce and business expanded the role of the
accountant. The Phoenicians invented a phonetic alphabet "probably for bookkeeping purposes", based on the
Egyptian hieratic script, and there is evidence that an individual in ancient Egypt held the title "comptroller of
the scribes". There is also evidence for an early form of accounting in the Old Testament; for example the
Book of Exodus describes Moses engaging Ithamar to account for the materials that had been contributed
towards the building of the tabernacle.[2]

By about the 4th century BC, the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians had auditing systems for checking
movement in and out of storehouses, including oral "audit reports", resulting in the term "auditor" (from
audire, to hear in Latin). The importance of taxation had created a need for the recording of payments, and the
Rosetta Stone also includes a description of a tax revolt.[2]
Roman empire
By the time of Emperor Augustus (63 BC - AD 14), the Roman government
had access to detailed financial information as evidenced by the Res Gestae
Divi Augusti (Latin: "The Deeds of the Divine Augustus"). The inscription
was an account to the Roman people of the Emperor Augustus' stewardship,
and listed and quantified his public expenditure, including distributions to
the people, grants of land or money to army veterans, subsidies to the
aerarium (treasury), building of temples, religious offerings, and
expenditures on theatrical shows and gladiatorial games, covering a period
of about forty years. The scope of the accounting information at the
emperor's disposal suggests that its purpose encompassed planning and
decision-making.[6]

The Roman historians Suetonius and Cassius Dio record that in 23 BC,
Augustus prepared a rationarium (account) which listed public revenues,
the amounts of cash in the aerarium (treasury), in the provincial fisci (tax
Part of the Res Gestae Divi
officials), and in the hands of the publicani (public contractors); and that it
Augusti from the
included the names of the freedmen and slaves from whom a detailed
Monumentum Ancyranum
account could be obtained. The closeness of this information to the (Temple of Augustus and
executive authority of the emperor is attested by Tacitus' statement that it Rome) at Ancyra, built
was written out by Augustus himself.[13] between 25 BCE - 20 BCE.

Records of cash, commodities, and transactions were kept scrupulously by


military personnel of the Roman army. An account of small cash sums received over a few days at the fort of
Vindolanda circa AD 110 shows that the fort could compute revenues in cash on a daily basis, perhaps from
sales of surplus supplies or goods manufactured in the camp, items dispensed to slaves such as cervesa (beer)
and clavi caligares (nails for boots), as well as commodities bought by individual soldiers. The basic needs of
the fort were met by a mixture of direct production, purchase and requisition; in one letter, a request for money
to buy 5,000 modii (measures) of braces (a cereal used in brewing) shows that the fort bought provisions for a
considerable number of people.[14]

The Heroninos Archive is the name given to a huge collection of papyrus documents, mostly letters, but also
including a fair number of accounts, which come from Roman Egypt in 3rd century AD. The bulk of the
documents relate to the running of a large, private estate[15] is named after Heroninos because he was
phrontistes (Koine Greek: manager) of the estate which had a complex and standardised system of accounting
which was followed by all its local farm managers.[16] Each administrator on each sub-division of the estate
drew up his own little accounts, for the day-to-day running of the estate, payment of the workforce, production
of crops, the sale of produce, the use of animals, and general expenditure on the staff. This information was
then summarized as pieces of papyrus scroll into one big yearly account for each particular sub-division of the
estate. Entries were arranged by sector, with cash expenses and gains extrapolated from all the different
sectors. Accounts of this kind gave the owner the opportunity to take better economic decisions because the
information was purposefully selected and arranged.[17]

Medieval and renaissance periods

Double-entry bookkeeping
In eighth century Persia, scholars were confronted with the Qur’an's requirement that Muslims keep records of
their indebtedness as a part of their obligation to account to God on all matters of their life. This became
particularly difficult when it came to inheritance, which demanded detailed accounting for the estate after death
of an individual. The assets remaining after the payment of funeral expenses and debts were allocated to every
member of the family in fixed shares, and included wives, children, fathers and mothers. This required
extensive use of ratios, multiplication and division that depended on the mathematics of Hindu-Arabic
numerals.

The inheritance mathematics were solved by a system developed by the medieval Islamic mathematician
Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi (known in Europe as Algorithmi from which we derive "algorithm").
Al-Khwarizmi's opus “The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing” established the
mathematics of algebra, with the last chapter devoted to the double-entry bookkeeping required for solution to
the Islamic inheritance allocations.[18] Al Khwarizmi's work was widely circulated, at a time that there was
substantial active discourse and trade between Arabic, Jewish and European scholars. It was taught in the
learning centers of Al-Andalus in Iberia, and from the tenth century forward, slowly found its way into
European banking, which began slipping Hindo-Arabic numerals into accounting books, despite their
prohibition as sinful by the medieval church. Bankers in Cairo, for example, used a double-entry bookkeeping
system which predated the known usage of such a form in Italy, and whose records remain from the 11th
century AD, found amongst the Cairo Geniza.[19] Fibonacci included double-entry and Hindo-Arabic
numerals in his Liber Abaci which was widely read in Italy and Europe.

Al-Khwarizmı's book introduced al-jabr meaning "restoration” (which European translated as "algebra") to its
inheritance accounting, leading to three fundamental accounting - algebreic concepts:

1. Debits = Credits: algebraic manipulations on the left-hand and right-hand size of an equal sign
had to "balance" or they were in error. This is the algebraic equivalent of double-entries
"bookkeeping equation" for error control.
2. Real accounts: These included assets for tracking wealth, weighed against liabilities from the
claims of others against that wealth, and the difference which is the owner's net wealth, or
owner's equity. This was al-Khwarizmi's "basic accounting equation".
3. Nominal accounts: These tracked activity that affected wealth, and the "restoration" into the real
accounts reflected accounting's closing process and the calculation of the owner's increment in
wealth -- net income.

Algebra balances and restores formulas on the left and right of an equal sign. Double-entry bookkeeping
similarly balances and restores debit and credit totals around an equal sign. Accounting is the balancing and
restoration of algebra applied to wealth accounting.[20]

In 756, The Abbasid Caliph Al-Mansur sent scholars, merchants and mercenaries to support the Tang
dynasty's Dukes of Li to thwart the An Shi Rebellion. The Abbasids and Tangs established an alliance, where
the Abbasids were known as the Black-robed Arabs. The Tang Dynasty's extensive conquests and polyglot
court required new mathematics to manage a complex bureaucratic system of tithes, corvee labor and taxes.
Abbasid scholars implemented their algebraic double-entry bookkeeping into operations of many of the Tang
ministries. The Tang dynasty expanded their maritime presence across the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf, and
Red Sea, and up the Euphrates River.[21] On land they conquered much of what is today's China.

The Tangs invented paper currency, with roots in merchant receipts of deposit as merchants and wholesalers.
The Tang's money certificates, colloquially called “flying cash” because of its tendency to blow away,
demanded much more extensive accounting for transactions. A fiat currency only drives value from its history
of transactions, starting with government issue, unlike gold and specie. Paper money was much more portable
than heavy metallic specie, and the Tang assured its universal usage under threat of penalties and possibly
execution for using anything else.
The Tangs were great innovators in the widespread use of paper for accounting books, and transaction
documents. They evolved the eight century Chinese printing techniques involving chiseling an entire page of
text into a wood block backwards, applying ink, and printing pages by inventing early movable type,
including characters chiseled in wood and the creation of ceramic print blocks. Tang science, culture, manners
and clothing were widely imitated across Asia. Japan's traditional dress, as well as customs like sitting on the
floor for meals, were borrowed from the Tangs. Imperial ministries adopted the Tang's double-entry
bookkeeping for administration of taxes and expenditures. The Goryeo kingdom (the modern name "Korea"
derives from Goryeo) donned the imperial yellow clothing of the Tangs, used the Three Departments and Six
Ministries imperial system of the Tang dynasty and had its own "microtributary system" that included the
Jurchen tribes of north China. The Tang's double-entry bookkeeping was essential to managing the complex
bureaucracies surrounding Goryeo tribute and taxation.[22]

Later dispersion of knowledge of double-entry can be attributed to the rise of Genghis Khan and later his
grandson Kublai Khan who were deeply influenced by the bureaucracy of the Tang Dynasty. The
accountants were the first to enter a city conquered by Mongols, tallying up the total wealth of the city, from
which the Mongols took 10%, to be allocated between the troops. Cities were conquered, then encouraged to
remain going-concerns. Double entry bookkeeping played an important role in assuring the Mongols were
fully informed about taxes and expenditure.[23]

Ratios, division and multiplication were difficult with Roman numerals, and were achieved though a method
called "doubling."[24] Similarly, addition and subtraction involved an error-prone rearranging of Roman
numerals. None of this lent itself to double-entry bookkeeping, an as a result, medieval Europe lagged Eastern
and Central Asia in adopting double-entry bookkeeping. Hindu-Arabic numerals were known in Europe, but
were those who used them were considered in league with the devil. The prohibition of Hindu-Arabic
mathematics was incorporated into statutes proscribing the use of anything but Roman numerals. That such
statutes were necessary is an indication of the attractiveness to merchants of double-entry bookkeeping.
Fibbonaci’s book Liber Abaci disseminated knowledge about double-entry and Hindu-Arabic numerals
widely to merchants and bankers, but because editions were hand copied, only a small group of people
actually had access to its knowledge, primarily Italians. The earliest extant evidence of full double-entry
bookkeeping appears in the Farolfi ledger of 1299–1300.[7] Giovanno Farolfi & Company, a firm of
Florentine merchants headquartered in Nîmes, acted as moneylenders to the Archbishop of Arles, their most
important customer.[25] The oldest discovered record of a complete double-entry system is the Messari (Italian:
Treasurer's) accounts of the city of Genoa in 1340. The Messari accounts contain debits and credits journalised
in a bilateral form and carry forward balances from the preceding year, and therefore enjoy general recognition
as a double-entry system.[26]

The Renaissance

The Vatican, and the Italian banking centers of Genoa, Florence and Venice grew wealthy in the 14th century.
Their operations recorded transactions, made loans, issued receipts and other modern banking activities.
Fibbonaci’s Liber Abbas was widely read in Italy, and the Italian Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici introduced
double-entry bookkeeping for the Medici bank in the 14th century. By the end of the 15th century, merchant
ventures in Venice used this system widely. The Vatican was an early customer for German printing
technology, which they used to churn out indulgences. Printing reached a wider audience with widely
available reading glasses from Venetian glassmakers (medieval Europeans tended to be far-sighted, which
made reading difficult before spectacles). Italy became a center for European printing, particularly with the
rise of Aldine Press editions of classics in Greek and Latin.[27]

It was in this environment that a close friend of Leonardo da Vinci, the itinerant tutor, Luca Pacioli published a
book not in Greek or Latin, but in a language that merchants understood well -- Italian vernacular. Pacioli
received an abbaco education, i.e., education in the vernacular rather than Latin and focused on the knowledge
required of merchants. His pragmatic orientation, widespread promotion by his friend da Vinci, and use of
vernacular Italian assured that his 1494 publication, Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et
Proportionalita (Everything About Arithmetic, Geometry and Proportion) would become wildly popular.
Pacioli's book explained the Hindu-Arabic numerals, new developments in mathematics, and the system of
double-entry was popular with the increasingly influential merchant class. In contrast to scholarly abstracts in
Latin, Pacioli's vernacular text was accessible to the common man, and addressed the needs of businessmen
and merchants.[28] His book remained in print for nearly 400 years.

Luca’s book popularized the words “credre” means “to entrust” and “debere” means “to owe”-- the origin of
the use of the words "debit" and "credit" in accounting, but goes back to the days of single-entry bookkeeping,
which had as its chief objective keeping track of amounts owed by customers (debtors) and amounts owed to
creditors. Debit in Latin means "he owes" and credit in Latin means "he trusts".[29]

Ragusan economist Benedetto Cotrugli's 1458 treatise Della mercatura e del mercante perfetto contained the
earliest known manuscript of a double-entry bookkeeping system. His manuscript was first published in
1573.[30]

Luca Pacioli's Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalità (early Italian: "Review of
Arithmetic, Geometry, Ratio and Proportion") was first printed and published in Venice in 1494. It included a
27-page treatise on bookkeeping, "Particularis de Computis et Scripturis" (Latin: "Details of Calculation and
Recording"). Pacioli wrote primarily for, and sold mainly to, merchants who used the book as a reference text,
as a source of pleasure from the mathematical puzzles it contained, and to aid the education of their sons. His
work represents the first known printed treatise on bookkeeping; and it is widely believed to be the forerunner
of modern bookkeeping practice. In Summa de arithmetica, Pacioli introduced symbols for plus and minus for
the first time in a printed book, symbols which became standard notation in Italian Renaissance mathematics.
Summa de arithmetica was also the first known book printed in Italy to contain algebra.[31]

Ragusan economist Benedetto Cotrugli's 1458 treatise Della mercatura e del mercante perfetto contained the
earliest known manuscript of a double-entry bookkeeping system, however Cotrugli's manuscript was not
officially published until 1573. In fact even at the time of writing his work in 1494 Pacioli was aware of
Cotrugli's efforts and credited Cortrugli with the origination of the double entry book keeping system.[32][33]

Although Luca Pacioli did not invent double-entry bookkeeping,[34] his 27-page treatise on bookkeeping is an
important work because of its wide circulation and the fact that it was printed in the vernacular Italian
language.[35]

Pacioli saw accounting as an ad-hoc ordering system devised by the merchant. Its regular use provides the
merchant with continued information about his business, and allows him to evaluate how things are going and
to act accordingly. Pacioli recommends the Venetian method of double-entry bookkeeping above all others.
Three major books of account are at the direct basis of this system:

1. the memoriale (Italian: memorandum)


2. the giornale (Journal)
3. the quaderno (ledger)

The ledger classes as the central document and is accompanied by an alphabetical index.[36]

Pacioli's treatise gave instructions on recording barter transactions and transactions in a variety of currencies –
both of which were far more common than today. It also enabled merchants to audit their own books and to
ensure that the entries in the accounting records made by their bookkeepers complied with the method he
described. Without such a system, all merchants who did not maintain their own records were at greater risk of
theft by their employees and agents: it is not by accident that the first and last items described in his treatise
concern maintenance of an accurate inventory.[37]
The Renaissance cultural context

Accounting as it developed in Renaissance Europe also had moral and religious connotations, recalling the
judgment of souls and the audit of sin.[38]

Financial and management accounting

The development of joint-stock companies (especially from about 1600) built wider audiences for accounting
information, as investors without first-hand knowledge of their operations relied on accounts to provide the
requisite information.[39] This development resulted in a split of accounting systems for internal (i.e.
management accounting) and external (i.e. financial accounting) purposes, and subsequently also in
accounting and disclosure regulations and a growing need for independent attestation of external accounts by
auditors.[8]

Modern professional accounting


Modern Accounting is a product of centuries of thought, custom, habit, action and convention. Two concepts
have formed the current state of the accountancy profession. Firstly, the development of the double-entry
book-keeping system in the fourteenth and fifteenth century and secondly, accountancy professionalization
which was created in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.[40] The modern profession of the chartered
accountant originated in Scotland in the nineteenth century. During this time, accountants often belonged to the
same associations as solicitors, and the latter solicitors sometimes offered accounting services to their clients.
Early modern accounting had similarities to today's forensic accounting:[41]

"Like forensic accountants today, accountants then incorporated the duties of expert financial
witnesses into their general services rendered. An 1824 circular announcing the accounting
practice of one James McClelland of Glasgow promises he will make “statements for laying
before arbiters, courts or council.”[41]

In July 1854 The Institute of Accountants in Glasgow petitioned Queen Victoria for a Royal Charter. The
Petition, signed by 49 Glasgow accountants, argued that the profession of accountancy had long existed in
Scotland as a distinct profession of great respectability, and that although the number of practitioners had been
originally few, the number had been rapidly increasing. The petition also pointed out that accountancy required
a varied group of skills; as well as mathematical skills for calculation, the accountant had to have an
acquaintance with the general principles of the legal system as they were frequently employed by the courts to
give evidence on financial matters. The Edinburgh Society of accountants adopted the name "Chartered
Accountant" for members.[42]

By the middle of the 19th century, Britain's Industrial Revolution was in full swing, and London was the
financial centre of the world. With the growth of the limited liability company and large scale manufacturing
and logistics, demand surged for more technically proficient accountants capable of handling the increasingly
complex world of high speed global transactions, able to calculate figures like asset depreciation and inventory
valuation and cognizant of the latest changes in legislation such as the new Company law, then being
introduced. As companies proliferated, the demand for reliable accountancy shot up, and the profession rapidly
became an integral part of the business and financial system.

To improve their status and combat criticism of low standards, local professional bodies in England
amalgamated to form the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, established by royal
charter in 1880.[10] Initially with just under 600 members, the newly formed institute expanded rapidly; it soon
drew up standards of conduct and examinations for admission and members were authorised to use the
professional designations "FCA" (Fellow Chartered Accountant), for a firm partner and "ACA" (Associate
Chartered Accountant) for a qualified member of an accountant's staff. In the United States the American
Institute of Certified Public Accountants was established in 1887.

See also
Kushim (individual)

References
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ISBN 978-3-030-49091-1. OCLC 1224141523 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1224141523).
28. Westland, J Christopher. (2020). Audit Analytics : Data Science for the Accounting Profession
(https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1224141523). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
ISBN 978-3-030-49091-1. OCLC 1224141523 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1224141523).
29. Thiéry, Michel: Did you say Debit?, Assumption University (Thailand), AU-GSB e-Journal, Vol.
2 No. 1, June 2009, p.35, AU.edu (http://gsbejournal.au.edu/2V/Journal/DID%20YOU%20SA
Y%20DEBIT.pdf) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20130514010921/http://gsbejournal.au.
edu/2V/Journal/DID%20YOU%20SAY%20DEBIT.pdf) 2013-05-14 at the Wayback Machine
30. Michael Chatfield; Richard Vangermeersch (2014). The History of Accounting (RLE
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ml). The Boston Globe. Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC. ISSN 0743-1791 (https://www.worl
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Accounting and Accountants" by Richard Brown, 1905,

Further reading
Brown, Richard, ed. A History of Accounting and Accountants (2006)
Chatfield, Michael; Richard Vangermeersch (2014). The History of Accounting: An International
Encyclopedia (https://books.google.com/books?id=DmnMAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA183). Routledge.
ISBN 9781134675456.
Gleeson-White, Jane. Double Entry: How the Merchants of Venice Created Modern Finance
(2013)
King, Thomas A. More Than a Numbers Game: A Brief History of Accounting (2006)
Loft, Anne. "Towards a critical understanding of accounting: the case of cost accounting in the
UK, 1914–1925." Accounting, Organizations and Society (1986) 11#2 pp: 137–169.
Soll, Jacob. The Reckoning: Financial Accountability and the Rise and Fall of Nations (2014),
major interpretive history
Tsuji, Atsuo, and Paul Garner, eds. Studies in Accounting History: Tradition and Innovation for
the Twenty-First Century (1995)online (https://www.questia.com/library/3171729/studies-in-acc
ounting-history-tradition-and-innovation)
Wanna, John, Christine Ryan, and Chew Ng, eds. From Accounting to Accountability: A
Centenary History of the Australian National Audit Office (2001) online (https://www.questia.co
m/library/102032852/from-accounting-to-accountability-a-centenary-history)

United States
Allen, David Grayson, and Kathleen McDermott. Accounting for Success: A History of Price
Waterhouse in America 1890-1990 (Harvard Business School Press, 1993), 373 pp.
Carey, John L. The rise of the accounting profession: From technician to professional, 1896-
1936 (Vol. 1. American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, 1969)
Carey, John L. The rise of the accounting profession: To responsibility and authority, 1937-1969
(Vol. 2. American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, 1969)
Hammond, Theresa A. A White-Collar Profession: African American Certified Public
Accountants since 1921 (2002) online (https://www.questia.com/library/101417523/a-white-coll
ar-profession-african-american-certified)
Miranti, Paul J. Accountancy Comes of Age: The Development of an American Profession,
1886-1940 (1990)
Westland, J Christopher. (2020). Audit Analytics : Data Science for the Accounting Profession.
Cham: Springer International Publishing. ISBN 978-3-030-49091-1. OCLC 1224141523.
Zeff, Stephen A. "How the US accounting profession got where it is today: Part II." Accounting
Horizons 17#4 (2003): 267–286. online (http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~sazeff/PDF/Horizons,%20Par
t%20II%20(print).pdf)

Historiography
Fleischman, Richard K., and Vaughan S. Radcliffe. "The roaring nineties: accounting history
comes of age." Accounting Historians Journal (2005): 61-109. in JSTOR (https://www.jstor.org/s
table/40698310)

External links
Media related to History of accountancy at Wikimedia Commons

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