Accounting 1
Up until the last few decades there was a general belief that industrial accounting had its origin in the rise of the factory system in the Industrial Revolution. One authority, for example, has stated: Cost accounting is not old by several centuries as is mercantile bookkeeping by double entry. It is, in fact, of quite recent origin, essentially a product of the nineteenth century, which has been greatly extended and developed in the twentieth.... Cost accounting, therefore, is one of the many consequences of the industrial revolution.1 Accounting has been developed to furnish management with better means of control than have been available in the past. This accounting was done through a development of internal accounts. Before the Industrial Revolution, accounting was mainly a record of the external relations of one business unit with other business units, a record of relations determined in the market. With the advent of large scale productive operations ... necessity arose for more emphasis upon the accounting for interests within the com petitive unit and the use of accounting records as a means of administrative control over the enterprise...
" 9 This individual had an official status and his records had to be deposited with the government as a matter of legal evidence in case of some dispute. The following is typical of the views of one of the keen students of this aspect of the subject: Though instances to suggest the contrary may be found, most merchants of the period we are considering did not use their bookkeeping, whether by double entry or otherwise, to keep a regular and accurate check on their capital and profits. THE GENOESE SHIPS' ACCOUNTS While not concerned altogether with industrial or cost accounting, the records kept by Genoese ships' scribes in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are interesting as indicating the early development of costing problems. In fact, as will be shown later in this chapter, they date back to about the fourteenth century when, as a result of the rapid growth of Italian, English, Flemish, and German commerce, industrial enterprises began to be established by various individuals and partnerships to engage in the manufacture of woolen and silk cloth, books, coins, and other items in common use at the time. 7In carrying out this purpose, several examples of the early use of accounting techniques in the mediaeval era are cited and discussed in subsequent sections. He kept a careful record of the costs incurred on a voyage, as well as the amount of freight due from merchants who shipped goods overseas. "By the thirteenth century the responsibilities and burdens of accounting were so great that most maritime towns of importance in trade by law required the owners of ships crossing the seas to employ a scribe from the beginning to the end of a voyage as a permanent member of the crew; in Venice and Barcelona the larger ships were required to have two, but in Genoa one was apparently regarded as sufficient. 6 Costing had not been so essential among that group so long as all their industrial and selling activities were regulated by the highly monopolized guilds; but, as many firms have since learned, when the owners of small central workshops found themselves competing now not only against the guilds, but also among themselves, more accurate records of costs became imperative and almost a prerequisite for success. On the other hand, the evidence of early bookkeeping techniques gives little support to the views summarized at the opening of this study .
Common topics in this essay:
Venice Barcelona,
Industrial Revolution,
Flemish German,
SHIPS' ACCOUNTS,
Henry VII,
Rivegno Naples,
MEDIAEVAL ERA,
double entry,
cost accounting,
industrial revolution,
industrial accounting,
entry bookkeeping,
double entry bookkeeping,
stated cost accounting,
accurate records,
expenses incomes,
ex sarcia,
ship ship,
records costs,
bookkeeping double entry,
bernardi de rivegno,
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Acceptance Essays
