ABSTRACT
To some extent accounting is a prisoner of its historical development. It probably developed from the need, even in the Ancient world, for records (a) of asset holdings and (b) of relations with other parties. It was not until the growth of commerce in the Middle Ages, however, that the system of double-entry bookkeeping evolved. (Pacioli’s famous treatise on the system employed in Venice was published in 1494.) Both objectives were realized simultaneously by the ‘dual classification’ of resources, (a) according to the nature of the resources, and (b) according to the ‘equity’ in those resources.
