ABSTRACT
The use of charge/discharge accounting in Britain, in early times, is well documented. It was substantially, though not only, a cash-based system which was widely used, as early as the thirteenth century, to enable the steward to inform the lord of the manor how resources entrusted to him (charged) had been applied (discharged) (Noke, 1981). The system had its origin in the need to report to a higher authority and Jones has demonstrated that it was eminently suitable for application to local government. The first recorded use of charge/discharge by a borough occurred in 1321 (Kones, 1985a: 202).
