ABSTRACT
Born at Nijmegen, in the Netherlands, about 1660, Mathieu de la Porte came to France at the end of the 1670s. ‘Bookkeeper to His Majesty,” he renounced his Protestantism in 1683 and was received, the following year, into the guild of Maîtres experts et jurés écrivains de Paris (sworn expert writing masters of Paris). In 1685, he published his first accounting work, the Guide des négociants et teneurs de livres (Merchants and bookkeepers guide), but his most important work was published in 1704: la Science des négociants et teneurs de livres (Mercantile and bookkeeping science). This work went through twenty editions and exercised a very strong influence on the authors of his time. Contained within it is one of the first attempts at account classification. Accounts are divided into three classes: the accounts of the proprietor; real accounts (cash, stock, fixed assets); agents’ accounts. De la Porte formulated general rules regarding the accounts of persons and of goods, at the same time explaining how to debit and credit certain accounts. After describing accounting for different sorts of transactions, the paper emphasizes the entries relative to partnerships. It then looks at closing entries and the different account books recommended by de la Porte. An appendix provides an updated presentation of the accounts classification proposed in de la Porte’s book.
