Who invented double bookkeeping?
Used in accounting, including modern accounting, double-entry is one of the oldest information technologies. Meanwhile, who invented it, is completely unknown. I have my own hypothesis on this. It was published a few years ago, but the circulation of the book is insignificant - I do not think that at least a dozen of people in Habravchan got acquainted with it. Isn't the rest curious?
To give the post due intrigue, I will inform you that a young and talented ancient IT pros have a hand in the invention of double-entry bookkeeping. An image of one of them, behind the laptop of the antediluvian model, is attached.
Okay, I joked about the ancient Roman programmer. What is ancient Roman when ancient greek? However, about double-entry bookkeeping - no joke. From her so many people cry with hot tears that their tongues do not turn around.
')
For those lucky ones who are far from double bookkeeping, I explain the situation.
The founder of double-entry bookkeeping is considered to be Luca Pacioli, who published the first accounting work in 1494 under the title “Treatise on Accounts and Records”. The monk-mathematician did not work for a day as an accountant and had a very distant relation to accounting, which is very noticeable in a treatise, which is simply boring to read, as it is boring to read most modern accounting textbooks. This alone indicates that Pacioli was not the author of the methodology, but an elementary compiler (which was not considered shameful at that time).
Most historians of accounting tend to believe that the actual inventor remained unknown: for example, some medieval merchant or the entire merchant family, which for decades or even centuries kept technology secret from competitors. Or even not a medieval family, but a more ancient - ancient Roman, for example.
I will say right away that I am also inclined to the ancient Roman version. However, here it is necessary to understand the main difficulty. The difficulty is not in obtaining any written evidence of the double-record invention — it probably has not survived — but in understanding the purposes for which the double-record was invented.
The purpose of a double entry is the most mysterious in the history of its invention!
By itself, double entry is a fairly solid and tightly knit technology. It has a set of well-known advantages and a set of equally well-known drawbacks, but it’s impossible to deny that double-entry is a technology.
But - every technology is designed for something, but a double entry is not intended for anything: the technology itself is like an alien one. Imagine a device that has fallen from the sky: some kind of wires, sensors, terminals and connectors, and even more or less clear how it works ... and you will destroy the purpose of the whole fig. So with double recording the same story.
Its device is quite tricky, but if in a nutshell, it looks like this. There are two unequal values: A (asset) and P (passive). If we subtract P from A, we get the difference, it goes without saying. Let's call the difference K (capital).
We take the formula (the so-called balance equation):
A - P = K
Transferring P to the right side, we get:
A = K + P
Just see how cool it was!
Now, if we begin to register the values ​​A and P (what is the purpose of accounting), but together with them we will also begin to register (not calculate how it suggests, namely register!) The difference between them K (capital), then a double entry is formed its debit and credit and their total posting amount. A debit credit combined in a single accounting entry is an addition to equal values ​​of equal quantities, the same with subtraction. What happens in this case? The same values ​​will be obtained, what else can it turn out ?!
A simple arithmetic for the first class, but why is it - this is the most accounting balancing - was invented and implemented in practice, that is the question?
They explain it differently, but each time it is not convincing: either to check the books, or to calculate the capital, or due to the emergence of joint-stock companies. The reasons, from my point of view, are all inconclusive. In Russia, double-entry was learned at the end of the 18th century, another half-century of double-entry was required for implementation, however, until that time, the Russians kept accounting records: regulations were issued, statements were filled out, property was recalculated. Accounting was, and double-entry, imagine, was not!
So I put forward my own hypothesis, explaining why it was necessary, together with A (assets) and P (liabilities), to also register K (capital).
According to my version, double entry was invented in ancient Rome, in connection with the qualifications (here I am not original).
Tsenz - population census, held every 5 years. The qualification itself was as follows. Every legally independent citizen under an oath gave information about himself: his full name, place of birth, father’s name or (for freed slaves) the former owner, age and taxable property. On the basis of the property owned by the Roman, one or another qualification class was assigned to him, and in general, his rights and privileges were determined.
Well, great, but what does double bookkeeping have to do with it? But with it.
The handbooks say that the censors elected from among the consuls (former consuls) were responsible for holding censuses in ancient Rome. The censors had the right to reduce the number of civil rights enjoyed by the Roman according to the results of the qualification, they even had the right to withdraw the senator from the senate. At the same time, according to reference books, not only purely political and administrative considerations were taken into account, but also the personal life of every citizen, that is, the censors assumed the function of the guardians of morality.
Well, how do you find an official with such overwhelming powers? I was unable to establish whether the censors had the right to derogate the civil rights of the Romans only during the period of the qualifications or between them, that is, on a permanent basis, but I strongly suspect that they did. Otherwise, how could statesmen observe the morality of fellow citizens, if the qualifications were held every five years? The status of an official with such informative functions as that of the censor was to be maintained constantly, therefore the powers of the censor were required to include the current revision of qualifying lists.
A reasonable guess? It seems to me reasonable.
Then figure out how the censors could revise the lists of Roman citizens in between the qualifications. The essence of the audit, with any of its national peculiarities and legal arrangements, could be reduced to one thing: the censor was declared a Roman citizen, in order to check his property status - let's not forget that the audit of the qualifying lists of Roman citizens presupposed first of all a check of the property status, and then the rest . According to the results of the property audit and related observations, the censor determined: is the behavior of this Roman citizen moral? Shouldn't this Roman be diminished of his rights? Does he deserve to belong to a certain social stratum?
If I am right, it becomes clear that the whip, which the ancient Romans were forced to keep home written records: the censors.
We conclude that every law-abiding Roman, out of fear of visiting a censor, kept records of household property. This does not yet explain the invention of the double entry, but brings it closer, especially if you find out what kind of written records the ancient Romans could have at the time of the qualifications.
The main thing is not even what, the main thing is on what carrier.
In ancient Rome, according to modern reference books, the following information carriers were used: papyrus, wooden planks, parchment, tree bark, clay shards, and plaster. On which of the information carriers did the venerable fathers of the Roman families keep household records and in what inexplicable way did the media used relate to the invention of the double entry?
What kind of carrier used the ancient Romans for the written account of household property?
The bark of the tree, the clay shards and the plaster are swept away immediately: it's just hard to imagine.
I suppose that the papyrus was not used by the Romans for the performance of accounts for the reason that it was expensive all the same. During the ancient period, papyrus was the main writing material for the Mediterranean countries, but only with certain types of writing: for example, literary texts on papyrus scrolls were recorded and legal contracts were drawn up, and daily business records were not, in order to save. Otherwise, the economic papyrus would have been preserved in large quantities, but they have not been preserved: it means that there simply was not.
Then the parchment codes, which as an information carrier is much more durable and more attractive than papyrus scrolls? Also unlikely. Parchment was more expensive than papyrus - the skin of cattle after all! - therefore, its use in home accounting looks even less likely. Secondly, the use of parchment does not pass on chronology.
To clarify the sequence of events, I compiled the following chronology. Think for yourself what and when, according to the official reference data, it happened.
3 thousand BC - the first preserved papyrus;
578-534 BC. - the establishment of qualifications, initially property;
middle 5 in. BC. - the value of qualifications has greatly increased;
443 BC - introduced the position of the censor;
312 BC - holding the first monetary qualification;
OK. 180 BC - the beginning of the production of parchment;
middle of 1 c. BC. - The position of the censor eliminated;
74 AD - cancellation of qualifications;
1 c. ne - the existence of codes was reliably attested;
2 in. ne - the invention of paper;
4-5 centuries. ne - the scroll began to be supplanted by the code;
8th c. ne - paper penetration into Europe.
11th century ne - stopping the use of papyrus as writing material.
Parchment began to be made after more than a hundred years after the first monetary qualification and two and a half centuries before their cancellation. While the production of parchment was established, which was unlikely to happen quickly, the qualifications began to fall into decay ... and taking into account the high cost of parchment ... and the fact that parchment codes appeared when the qualifications were canceled ... It is doubtful that the ancient Romans who lived in the times of qualifications used the house accounting parchment.
If historians do not lie, and home accounting in Ancient Rome, carried out at the time of qualifications, was still written, it remains to be assumed that it was carried out in diptychs — folding writing tablets coated with a layer of wax: a letter on them could be scratched with a stylus and then erased. (The drawing on an ancient Greek vase depicts not a notebook, but a writing device diptych ... as you guessed, of course).
How many diptychs were required to record the property of one family? Let's figure it out. If we assume that no more than forty lines could be written on one diptych (twenty on one board and twenty on another - what do you think fit more? Is it on the waxed surface with a sharp stick?), And the total number of records was , a thousand (household utensils, pets, slaves, etc.), it turns out twenty-five diptychs ... the size of a laptop. How do you like keeping a compact home accounting, not the largest family, on twenty-five laptops?
In favor of the assumption that home accounting was conducted on diptychs, says a friendly mention by historians of a special counting room ( tablinum ) for storing home accounting documents. The term tablinum - “archive” is etymologically related to tabula - “board, plate, table”, and tabella - “plate, plank”. So what information carriers were kept by the ancient Romans in the tablinum ? Surely papyrus or parchment?
And the most important.
During the census, the Roman swore on the value (total value), but not on the property turnover. It does not follow from the definition of qualifications in reference books that the ancient Roman legislation obliged to keep citizens on parish and expenditure records ... and where is the evidence that the ancient Romans actually carried it, as is unreasonably assumed by most historians?
I hope that the difference between the income and expenses account and the account for the balance (balances) is clear: in the first case, it records how much property has been removed from the farm and how much has been received (income-expenditure), and in the second case, only cash balances on the current date are recorded. For balance accounting, the ability to add new ones over old records was very useful and desirable. For daily draft accounting, something inexpensive and non-expendable was needed, and a simple waxed board was, without a doubt, an accessible and common material, and it was not required to be thrown away when the record was updated.
It is then that everything converges into one dense logical point: the fact of keeping home records, which is rather unusual for today; balance accounting, which the Romans had the opportunity to carry out on the media available to them; multiplicity of information carriers required for accounting; censors who had the right under the pretext of a qualification check to invade a Roman home; and the double entry that serves as our subject.
What do you think, would a high-ranking official, who had declared himself in a Roman house for a revision of the property status, recalculate the records recorded on dozens and possibly hundreds of diptychs? Niknika, a normal official, including an ancient Roman official, would have disagreed with this from his point of view. How do you even imagine a dialogue between the censor and the Romans subjected to a qualification check?
"Hello, I am a censor, I need the total value of your property."
"Twenty Min."
“What can you confirm?”
“And I have ninety diptychs lying around in my tablinum. Want - recount. "
No, the censor would have demanded to first familiarize himself with the general figure of the current property status, so that, if he doubts the accuracy of his credentials, he can proceed to detailed verification. Wait until the audited owner of the family summarizes a thousand or more figures, the censor would also not agree, wanting the final indicator to be presented to him immediately.
From where did the Roman who was subjected to a qualification check, at the first demand of the censor, take the required indicator? It is clear that the indicator had to be calculated in advance, that is, to be in a computed state constantly, in case of an unexpected visit.
In principle, it is quite simple to fulfill the censorship requirement; you just need to have a calculated total amount together with the balances for each property item. If the censor is satisfied with the final amount, all the better, and not to be satisfied - let him personally carry out an arithmetic check on the available diptychs. It is impossible to demand more from the verifiable, you understand.
I suppose that the Roman who carried out the home accounting, along with the remnants of his property on the current date, wrote down the total amount on the diptych - the same amount in which he swore during the qualification. When the property status changed, the Roman rubbed out the outdated record and introduced a new one, but at the same time - in case of a visit by the censor - he kept a separate diptych with the total amount of his property.
Nothing impracticable, right? The censor requires a total amount, and the head of the family politely replies:
"Please, here I have it on the final diptych is listed."
Not understood? Let's do it again.
It was impractical for a Roman who registered changes in property balances on diptychs to recalculate once calculated totals, so the Roman could act and probably acted in another way: he did not recalculate the total on indicators recorded in several (tens or hundreds) diptychs, and made equal changes only in changed indicators, including in the grand total, thereby significantly simplifying the arithmetic calculations. Simply put, the Roman did the accounting wiring! So, in my opinion, a double entry arose, with its consideration, along with real objects (A - assets, and P - liabilities) of the total value outcome (K - capital) and the methodological consequences resulting from double entry, which are not yet obvious, but already recognizable.
When the censor was declared in the Roman house, the owner presented him as a documentary evidence of his property status the diptychs stored in the tablinum: first, the one on which the final result was recorded, and, if necessary, a more thorough check, the remaining diptychs, on which the remnants of each type of property appeared.
The dialogue between the owner of the family and the censor looked different than the one presented earlier:
"Hello, I am a censor, I need the total value of your property."
"Twenty thousand sesterces".
"Present a summary."
“Here you are, my final diptych. See for yourself what is written in it: twenty thousand sesterces, a pretty penny to a pretty penny. ”
“The figure makes me doubt. In particular, I doubt that your data on the bulls correspond to reality. "
“O great Jupiter, what an undeserved grievance! I ask you, dear censor, to go to my family tablinum. , … , … , : ».
« ?»
« , , , … . , ».
« , ».
Accounting for equity in ancient Rome did not happen because someone very brainy all of a sudden came up with a particularly advanced methodology. No - if the dual methodology was invented under different conditions, it would not have the slightest chance of mass distribution! The invention of the double entry took place for the reason that it was convenient for a simple Roman man in the street to write down his own capital as an independent object, along with real property, on a waxed board — nothing more.
This is the core of my reasoning - the very thing that is not explained by any of the historians who adhere to the hypothesis of the birth of a double entry in ancient Rome, or in feudal Italy, or any other hypothesis. Well, well, double entry originated, and why there? and why exactly she? Yes, because I answer, it was precisely in ancient Rome that unique political and economic conditions were created: home accounting, balance accounting and the threat of a sudden check of the total property result, which made the registration of equity as an independent entity methodologically beneficial.
What happened to double recording next?
The Romans began to use papyrus and parchment book codes. Later, paper — information media, widely used to this day — penetrated into Europe, which allowed accounting entities to maintain a full-fledged receipt and expenditure account. When taking into account the need for accounting for capital as an independent object, the double entry should have lost all relevance for the Romans ... nevertheless, K (capital) continued, as an independent object, to be taken into account!
Why did it happen? Historical mystery.
The incident of preserving the accounting of own capital in the conditions of receipt and expenditure accounting can be explained only by an established tradition, the habit of correcting data on two diptychs after a business transaction, but not on one. If another object came in return for the deceased, the records of these two objects were subject to correction; if the operation was non-compensable, non-reciprocal, the result was subject to correction - a diptych with capital data. The habit of reigning with one operation at once several objects is so ingrained in the flesh and blood of the Romans that they could not abandon it in the new conditions.
Valuations were abolished, and the Roman accounting of household property has sunk into oblivion. However, it was preserved by merchants and money changers (Argentarians and Trapedits), for whom the accounting business remained absolutely necessary and natural. The emergence of new information media changed the accounting technology, pushed the boundaries, but the traders accustomed for several centuries have retained the methodological technique that was unnecessary, left over from the table-and-balance accounting, as a harmless and easy (at that time) atavism. Here, at the end of the 15th century, Luca Pacioli came to the forefront of the story, who guessed to put the methodology of merchant records into a mathematical treatise, thus immortalized his name.
Such a hypothesis about the origin of a double accounting entry is no more fantastic than others, and just as unverifiable.
I take all of them - to my hypothesis and to other hypotheses, too - I am not too serious and generally guided in this matter by the opinion that Nikolai Gogol expressed in Dead Souls:
« … , , : ? - ? : , ? : ? - , , , , , , , ; , , – : , , ! , – , ».
To give the post due intrigue, I will inform you that a young and talented ancient IT pros have a hand in the invention of double-entry bookkeeping. An image of one of them, behind the laptop of the antediluvian model, is attached.
Okay, I joked about the ancient Roman programmer. What is ancient Roman when ancient greek? However, about double-entry bookkeeping - no joke. From her so many people cry with hot tears that their tongues do not turn around.
')
For those lucky ones who are far from double bookkeeping, I explain the situation.
The founder of double-entry bookkeeping is considered to be Luca Pacioli, who published the first accounting work in 1494 under the title “Treatise on Accounts and Records”. The monk-mathematician did not work for a day as an accountant and had a very distant relation to accounting, which is very noticeable in a treatise, which is simply boring to read, as it is boring to read most modern accounting textbooks. This alone indicates that Pacioli was not the author of the methodology, but an elementary compiler (which was not considered shameful at that time).
Most historians of accounting tend to believe that the actual inventor remained unknown: for example, some medieval merchant or the entire merchant family, which for decades or even centuries kept technology secret from competitors. Or even not a medieval family, but a more ancient - ancient Roman, for example.
I will say right away that I am also inclined to the ancient Roman version. However, here it is necessary to understand the main difficulty. The difficulty is not in obtaining any written evidence of the double-record invention — it probably has not survived — but in understanding the purposes for which the double-record was invented.
The purpose of a double entry is the most mysterious in the history of its invention!
By itself, double entry is a fairly solid and tightly knit technology. It has a set of well-known advantages and a set of equally well-known drawbacks, but it’s impossible to deny that double-entry is a technology.
But - every technology is designed for something, but a double entry is not intended for anything: the technology itself is like an alien one. Imagine a device that has fallen from the sky: some kind of wires, sensors, terminals and connectors, and even more or less clear how it works ... and you will destroy the purpose of the whole fig. So with double recording the same story.
Its device is quite tricky, but if in a nutshell, it looks like this. There are two unequal values: A (asset) and P (passive). If we subtract P from A, we get the difference, it goes without saying. Let's call the difference K (capital).
We take the formula (the so-called balance equation):
A - P = K
Transferring P to the right side, we get:
A = K + P
Just see how cool it was!
Now, if we begin to register the values ​​A and P (what is the purpose of accounting), but together with them we will also begin to register (not calculate how it suggests, namely register!) The difference between them K (capital), then a double entry is formed its debit and credit and their total posting amount. A debit credit combined in a single accounting entry is an addition to equal values ​​of equal quantities, the same with subtraction. What happens in this case? The same values ​​will be obtained, what else can it turn out ?!
A simple arithmetic for the first class, but why is it - this is the most accounting balancing - was invented and implemented in practice, that is the question?
They explain it differently, but each time it is not convincing: either to check the books, or to calculate the capital, or due to the emergence of joint-stock companies. The reasons, from my point of view, are all inconclusive. In Russia, double-entry was learned at the end of the 18th century, another half-century of double-entry was required for implementation, however, until that time, the Russians kept accounting records: regulations were issued, statements were filled out, property was recalculated. Accounting was, and double-entry, imagine, was not!
So I put forward my own hypothesis, explaining why it was necessary, together with A (assets) and P (liabilities), to also register K (capital).
According to my version, double entry was invented in ancient Rome, in connection with the qualifications (here I am not original).
Tsenz - population census, held every 5 years. The qualification itself was as follows. Every legally independent citizen under an oath gave information about himself: his full name, place of birth, father’s name or (for freed slaves) the former owner, age and taxable property. On the basis of the property owned by the Roman, one or another qualification class was assigned to him, and in general, his rights and privileges were determined.
Well, great, but what does double bookkeeping have to do with it? But with it.
The handbooks say that the censors elected from among the consuls (former consuls) were responsible for holding censuses in ancient Rome. The censors had the right to reduce the number of civil rights enjoyed by the Roman according to the results of the qualification, they even had the right to withdraw the senator from the senate. At the same time, according to reference books, not only purely political and administrative considerations were taken into account, but also the personal life of every citizen, that is, the censors assumed the function of the guardians of morality.
Well, how do you find an official with such overwhelming powers? I was unable to establish whether the censors had the right to derogate the civil rights of the Romans only during the period of the qualifications or between them, that is, on a permanent basis, but I strongly suspect that they did. Otherwise, how could statesmen observe the morality of fellow citizens, if the qualifications were held every five years? The status of an official with such informative functions as that of the censor was to be maintained constantly, therefore the powers of the censor were required to include the current revision of qualifying lists.
A reasonable guess? It seems to me reasonable.
Then figure out how the censors could revise the lists of Roman citizens in between the qualifications. The essence of the audit, with any of its national peculiarities and legal arrangements, could be reduced to one thing: the censor was declared a Roman citizen, in order to check his property status - let's not forget that the audit of the qualifying lists of Roman citizens presupposed first of all a check of the property status, and then the rest . According to the results of the property audit and related observations, the censor determined: is the behavior of this Roman citizen moral? Shouldn't this Roman be diminished of his rights? Does he deserve to belong to a certain social stratum?
If I am right, it becomes clear that the whip, which the ancient Romans were forced to keep home written records: the censors.
We conclude that every law-abiding Roman, out of fear of visiting a censor, kept records of household property. This does not yet explain the invention of the double entry, but brings it closer, especially if you find out what kind of written records the ancient Romans could have at the time of the qualifications.
The main thing is not even what, the main thing is on what carrier.
In ancient Rome, according to modern reference books, the following information carriers were used: papyrus, wooden planks, parchment, tree bark, clay shards, and plaster. On which of the information carriers did the venerable fathers of the Roman families keep household records and in what inexplicable way did the media used relate to the invention of the double entry?
What kind of carrier used the ancient Romans for the written account of household property?
The bark of the tree, the clay shards and the plaster are swept away immediately: it's just hard to imagine.
I suppose that the papyrus was not used by the Romans for the performance of accounts for the reason that it was expensive all the same. During the ancient period, papyrus was the main writing material for the Mediterranean countries, but only with certain types of writing: for example, literary texts on papyrus scrolls were recorded and legal contracts were drawn up, and daily business records were not, in order to save. Otherwise, the economic papyrus would have been preserved in large quantities, but they have not been preserved: it means that there simply was not.
Then the parchment codes, which as an information carrier is much more durable and more attractive than papyrus scrolls? Also unlikely. Parchment was more expensive than papyrus - the skin of cattle after all! - therefore, its use in home accounting looks even less likely. Secondly, the use of parchment does not pass on chronology.
To clarify the sequence of events, I compiled the following chronology. Think for yourself what and when, according to the official reference data, it happened.
3 thousand BC - the first preserved papyrus;
578-534 BC. - the establishment of qualifications, initially property;
middle 5 in. BC. - the value of qualifications has greatly increased;
443 BC - introduced the position of the censor;
312 BC - holding the first monetary qualification;
OK. 180 BC - the beginning of the production of parchment;
middle of 1 c. BC. - The position of the censor eliminated;
74 AD - cancellation of qualifications;
1 c. ne - the existence of codes was reliably attested;
2 in. ne - the invention of paper;
4-5 centuries. ne - the scroll began to be supplanted by the code;
8th c. ne - paper penetration into Europe.
11th century ne - stopping the use of papyrus as writing material.
Parchment began to be made after more than a hundred years after the first monetary qualification and two and a half centuries before their cancellation. While the production of parchment was established, which was unlikely to happen quickly, the qualifications began to fall into decay ... and taking into account the high cost of parchment ... and the fact that parchment codes appeared when the qualifications were canceled ... It is doubtful that the ancient Romans who lived in the times of qualifications used the house accounting parchment.
If historians do not lie, and home accounting in Ancient Rome, carried out at the time of qualifications, was still written, it remains to be assumed that it was carried out in diptychs — folding writing tablets coated with a layer of wax: a letter on them could be scratched with a stylus and then erased. (The drawing on an ancient Greek vase depicts not a notebook, but a writing device diptych ... as you guessed, of course).
How many diptychs were required to record the property of one family? Let's figure it out. If we assume that no more than forty lines could be written on one diptych (twenty on one board and twenty on another - what do you think fit more? Is it on the waxed surface with a sharp stick?), And the total number of records was , a thousand (household utensils, pets, slaves, etc.), it turns out twenty-five diptychs ... the size of a laptop. How do you like keeping a compact home accounting, not the largest family, on twenty-five laptops?
In favor of the assumption that home accounting was conducted on diptychs, says a friendly mention by historians of a special counting room ( tablinum ) for storing home accounting documents. The term tablinum - “archive” is etymologically related to tabula - “board, plate, table”, and tabella - “plate, plank”. So what information carriers were kept by the ancient Romans in the tablinum ? Surely papyrus or parchment?
And the most important.
During the census, the Roman swore on the value (total value), but not on the property turnover. It does not follow from the definition of qualifications in reference books that the ancient Roman legislation obliged to keep citizens on parish and expenditure records ... and where is the evidence that the ancient Romans actually carried it, as is unreasonably assumed by most historians?
I hope that the difference between the income and expenses account and the account for the balance (balances) is clear: in the first case, it records how much property has been removed from the farm and how much has been received (income-expenditure), and in the second case, only cash balances on the current date are recorded. For balance accounting, the ability to add new ones over old records was very useful and desirable. For daily draft accounting, something inexpensive and non-expendable was needed, and a simple waxed board was, without a doubt, an accessible and common material, and it was not required to be thrown away when the record was updated.
It is then that everything converges into one dense logical point: the fact of keeping home records, which is rather unusual for today; balance accounting, which the Romans had the opportunity to carry out on the media available to them; multiplicity of information carriers required for accounting; censors who had the right under the pretext of a qualification check to invade a Roman home; and the double entry that serves as our subject.
What do you think, would a high-ranking official, who had declared himself in a Roman house for a revision of the property status, recalculate the records recorded on dozens and possibly hundreds of diptychs? Niknika, a normal official, including an ancient Roman official, would have disagreed with this from his point of view. How do you even imagine a dialogue between the censor and the Romans subjected to a qualification check?
"Hello, I am a censor, I need the total value of your property."
"Twenty Min."
“What can you confirm?”
“And I have ninety diptychs lying around in my tablinum. Want - recount. "
No, the censor would have demanded to first familiarize himself with the general figure of the current property status, so that, if he doubts the accuracy of his credentials, he can proceed to detailed verification. Wait until the audited owner of the family summarizes a thousand or more figures, the censor would also not agree, wanting the final indicator to be presented to him immediately.
From where did the Roman who was subjected to a qualification check, at the first demand of the censor, take the required indicator? It is clear that the indicator had to be calculated in advance, that is, to be in a computed state constantly, in case of an unexpected visit.
In principle, it is quite simple to fulfill the censorship requirement; you just need to have a calculated total amount together with the balances for each property item. If the censor is satisfied with the final amount, all the better, and not to be satisfied - let him personally carry out an arithmetic check on the available diptychs. It is impossible to demand more from the verifiable, you understand.
I suppose that the Roman who carried out the home accounting, along with the remnants of his property on the current date, wrote down the total amount on the diptych - the same amount in which he swore during the qualification. When the property status changed, the Roman rubbed out the outdated record and introduced a new one, but at the same time - in case of a visit by the censor - he kept a separate diptych with the total amount of his property.
Nothing impracticable, right? The censor requires a total amount, and the head of the family politely replies:
"Please, here I have it on the final diptych is listed."
Not understood? Let's do it again.
It was impractical for a Roman who registered changes in property balances on diptychs to recalculate once calculated totals, so the Roman could act and probably acted in another way: he did not recalculate the total on indicators recorded in several (tens or hundreds) diptychs, and made equal changes only in changed indicators, including in the grand total, thereby significantly simplifying the arithmetic calculations. Simply put, the Roman did the accounting wiring! So, in my opinion, a double entry arose, with its consideration, along with real objects (A - assets, and P - liabilities) of the total value outcome (K - capital) and the methodological consequences resulting from double entry, which are not yet obvious, but already recognizable.
When the censor was declared in the Roman house, the owner presented him as a documentary evidence of his property status the diptychs stored in the tablinum: first, the one on which the final result was recorded, and, if necessary, a more thorough check, the remaining diptychs, on which the remnants of each type of property appeared.
The dialogue between the owner of the family and the censor looked different than the one presented earlier:
"Hello, I am a censor, I need the total value of your property."
"Twenty thousand sesterces".
"Present a summary."
“Here you are, my final diptych. See for yourself what is written in it: twenty thousand sesterces, a pretty penny to a pretty penny. ”
“The figure makes me doubt. In particular, I doubt that your data on the bulls correspond to reality. "
“O great Jupiter, what an undeserved grievance! I ask you, dear censor, to go to my family tablinum. , … , … , : ».
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Accounting for equity in ancient Rome did not happen because someone very brainy all of a sudden came up with a particularly advanced methodology. No - if the dual methodology was invented under different conditions, it would not have the slightest chance of mass distribution! The invention of the double entry took place for the reason that it was convenient for a simple Roman man in the street to write down his own capital as an independent object, along with real property, on a waxed board — nothing more.
This is the core of my reasoning - the very thing that is not explained by any of the historians who adhere to the hypothesis of the birth of a double entry in ancient Rome, or in feudal Italy, or any other hypothesis. Well, well, double entry originated, and why there? and why exactly she? Yes, because I answer, it was precisely in ancient Rome that unique political and economic conditions were created: home accounting, balance accounting and the threat of a sudden check of the total property result, which made the registration of equity as an independent entity methodologically beneficial.
What happened to double recording next?
The Romans began to use papyrus and parchment book codes. Later, paper — information media, widely used to this day — penetrated into Europe, which allowed accounting entities to maintain a full-fledged receipt and expenditure account. When taking into account the need for accounting for capital as an independent object, the double entry should have lost all relevance for the Romans ... nevertheless, K (capital) continued, as an independent object, to be taken into account!
Why did it happen? Historical mystery.
The incident of preserving the accounting of own capital in the conditions of receipt and expenditure accounting can be explained only by an established tradition, the habit of correcting data on two diptychs after a business transaction, but not on one. If another object came in return for the deceased, the records of these two objects were subject to correction; if the operation was non-compensable, non-reciprocal, the result was subject to correction - a diptych with capital data. The habit of reigning with one operation at once several objects is so ingrained in the flesh and blood of the Romans that they could not abandon it in the new conditions.
Valuations were abolished, and the Roman accounting of household property has sunk into oblivion. However, it was preserved by merchants and money changers (Argentarians and Trapedits), for whom the accounting business remained absolutely necessary and natural. The emergence of new information media changed the accounting technology, pushed the boundaries, but the traders accustomed for several centuries have retained the methodological technique that was unnecessary, left over from the table-and-balance accounting, as a harmless and easy (at that time) atavism. Here, at the end of the 15th century, Luca Pacioli came to the forefront of the story, who guessed to put the methodology of merchant records into a mathematical treatise, thus immortalized his name.
Such a hypothesis about the origin of a double accounting entry is no more fantastic than others, and just as unverifiable.
I take all of them - to my hypothesis and to other hypotheses, too - I am not too serious and generally guided in this matter by the opinion that Nikolai Gogol expressed in Dead Souls:
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Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/179885/
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