The Accounting Origins By Ali Khelfaoui

THE ORIGINS OF ACCOUNTING Where does accounting come from?…….. Who invented it or first started it?……... How was it organized and managed? 2.1- The Evaluation of double-entry bookkeeping ......2.1.1- Early history of accounting: Many attempts have been made in trying to establish the first origins of accounting; unfortunately up till today no one can precisely confirm when it all started. Frank Wood & Alan Sangster mentioned in their book1 business accounting tenth edition  that some form of accounting  records exist and were in use since 3000BC in Mesopotamia and Natalie Sermon and Sherridan Hughes in their book Working in Accountancy 2013 confirm that early record existed back to 7000BC in Mesopotamia. What also has been found and confirmed are common scenarios  that recognize the existence of some form of record-keeping in most civilizations dating back to about 3000BC. The oldest surviving business records found were written in old languages of the world first organized governments as of the Chaldean-Babylonian, Assyrian and Sumerian civilizations. Other evidence was from the Egyptian civilization, where scribes formed the “pivots on which the whole machinery of the treasury and the other departments turned”. In addition to that the Chinese civilization, during the Chao Dynasty (1122-256 BC) the government accounting played a major and sophisticated role. In the era of 256 BC, it was Zenon the manager of the great estate of Appolonius who introduced an elaborate system of responsibility accounting for the Greek civilization. During the Roman civilization, by law the taxpayer were required to prepare a statement of financial positions. In England, the ‘Pipe Roll’ are the oldest accounting records contains a description of what was annually due to the King of England , from 1130  to 1830 such as rent , fines  and taxes. According to professor A.R Belkaoui,  in all these civilizations there is the presence of some form of recorded bookkeeping ,one plausible assumption is that the Egyptians were famous for their trade and commerce over ages with different people ,” they must have received their first form of accountantship, which in the natural way of trade, was communicated to all the cities on the Mediterranean” What is certain that, Italy is the birth place of the double entry, it was the Lombards who first introduced their method of Accounts keeping*  as they were connecting to in trade to most of the cities in Europe. The books of Massari of Genoa, dating back from the year 1340 are considered to be the first books of double–entry to exist *. Furthermore thanks to the Italian merchants between 1250 and 1400 an integrated system of classification was created, were the pigeon holes were called accounts   based on the double-entry concept or principles of dual entries for all transactions. By the year 1400.  Accounting had become an important tool of management control, a great progress were made, Where the Italian merchants developed the rudiments of cost accounting by introducing reserves and some adjustment, such as deferred items, accruals and the audit for the balance sheet . Having saying that it doesn’t mean that those days accounting was more advance than nowadays, but to acknowledge the fact that a great contributions in the development of accounting were made and provided to the next generation.