The Wider Viewpoint of Early Bookkeeping Texts

This paper re-evaluates the scope of selected early bookkeeping texts, in order to address commonly held and well-documented misconceptions regarding the nature of those texts. Specifically, it reviews the content of Pacioli’s treatise of 1494, of Mellis (1588), Peele (1553) and Weddington (1567) to demonstrate that these texts were prepared by authors with an awareness of the commercial realities faced by the merchants of their time and a desire to impart advice calculated to cope with those realities. This advice went beyond the mechanics of the bookkeeping process, which is the limited scope that past literature has assigned to these texts. In the case of all four works, substantial evidence of a wider advisory ambition, transcending the mechanics of the bookkeeping process is found. The advice offered touches on aspects of commerce internal to a merchant’s business and aspects related to dealing with external parties. The advice offered varies in scope and character from text to text, in a manner that is related to the chosen audience of each text and the background of each author. In reviewing the four texts this article finds substantial insight into the development of commercial understanding generally and the experiences of early accounting authors. This insight sheds light on the motivations behind these early bookkeeping texts and on the origins of other aspects of commerce related literature. The clear need to re-evaluate the early bookkeeping literature in detail is signalled.