Genealogy of the accounting paradigm
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51302/rcyt.2015.5041Keywords:
double entry bookkeeping, single entry bookkeeping, charge and discharge system, negative numberAbstract
This paper explores the origin and evolution of the accounting paradigm (the debit and credit scheme) on the thesis of a large segment of the accounting literature, especially Peters and Emery (1978), who argued that the double entry bookkeeping system had its birth in the Italian Renaissance due to the reluctance of mathematics to accept the negative number. Although it is unquestionable that the Italian Renaissance is an important step in the development of the traditional system of bookkeeping, it is true that it is not necessarily bigger than the one produced to date, and though the negative number has played an important role, especially in the formal presentation of the classical system, for us, the double entry bookkeeping system has neither its origin in the Italian Renaissance, nor is it a consequence of the refusal to accept the negative number. Because the classical double entry system is based on a model that expresses the economic concept of transaction, which was already latent in some of the oldest known accounting records from Greece, India, and even Mesopotamia, although in an archaic form. Moreover, the traditional system has remained virtually unchanged after the doctrinal acceptance of the negative number, a fact which reinforces our thesis, because the traditional disclosure of financial information follows an analytical and logical scheme of numerical representation of the principle of duality, among other reasons.
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