ABSTRACT
Accounting historians have long noted that systematic bookkeeping was still rare even in the eighteenth century, and that the techniques used for balancing books were often crude. This chapter offers a dissenting view, based on the factual observation that when it came to trade, a sphere of economic activity which was central to economic development in the early modern era. Double-entry accounting in particular required much, much more work than a simple recording of transactions in chronological order. The chapter offers a short overview of the way two transatlantic traders of the second half of the eighteenth century managed their accounts. Numerous costs, fees and expenses were recorded within the merchandise accounts, over the whole year, which means that they did not appear in the profit and loss account at all. Thus, double-entry accounting kept track of the quantitative, revolving part of a larger credit that granted to a trader by other traders.
