Ancient Greece belongs to the invention of monetary money (VII century BC). For a long time, salt, animal skins, metal, etc. were used as an equivalent among different peoples when exchanging goods. But only coins were the cost meter in accounting and led to the flourishing of trade. Exchange in ancient Greece was carried out by money-changers-mealers (“man at the table”), who took a fee for their services. They gave the accumulated money on credit at a certain percentage. Later, the exchange meals turned in their functions into private banks, and the meals became the first bankers. Greek bankers were usually of slave origin, since, unlike ancient Egypt, financial activity was not considered a worthy occupation. Banking activities among the ancient Greeks did not have a decent justification, and this led to cruel punishments and bankruptcy. The Greeks carried out banking operations on the principle of an income-expenditure book. They first used the term "has", which is translated from Latin as "loan".
Unlike ancient Greece, Ancient Rome Preference was given not to theoretical, but to applied knowledge. Ancient Rome achieved particular success in the field of law, and economic activity received legal support. This led to the flourishing of banking, and commercial transactions became legally protected. The Roman accounting system, having learned all the achievements of its predecessors, deepened and developed. Roman terminology forms the basis of modern accounting (the terms "debit", "credit", "deposit", "acceptance", "operation", "table", "alimony", "commerce, etc.). .
2. The main stages in the development of accounting
In accordance with the Western classification, accounting has gone through five stages in its development.
1
stage - trading. This stage took almost six centuries in its historical development and is characterized by the appearance of double entry, chronological and systematic records in accounting, balance sheet, General Ledger, control methods and led to the creation of national trading systems. For the 16th century operational accounting is characteristic, that is, the identification of the results for each operation. Since the 17th century an accounting system appeared in which costs and output were measured on a single account of business transactions, called "Various goods". At the end of the trading stage of the development of accounting, an accounting system appeared based on the use of the Production account, as well as the Purchase and Sales accounts. At the same time, the total costs of the enterprise associated with the supply, production and sale were attributed without distribution to the Profit and Loss account. Data on already purchased goods was recorded in the debit of the account, and on sold goods - in the credit of the account.
"Production".
2 stage- entrepreneurial. At this stage in the development of accounting, there was a need to determine the cost of production, which caused at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. integration of industrial and financial accounting. Therefore, the entrepreneurial stage is characterized by the emergence of industrial accounting, which determines the cost of certain types of products, methods for distributing overhead costs, and a decimal system for classifying accounts. The pinnacle was the creation of business plans of accounts.
3 stage- organizational. At this stage, the system of planned indicators is organically used in accounting, which characterizes both the overall results of the enterprise and the activities of responsibility centers. Accounting, accumulating planned indicators, received the name of the budget and provided information characterizing the balance sheet, profits and losses, self-financing, supply, production, sales, and the activities of responsibility centers. The accounting department integrated the functions of accounting and planning, and a new specialty, managerial control, was born in its bowels.
4 stage - optimization. This stage is characterized by the fact that accounting, along with solving tactical problems, began to solve strategic management problems based on the use of computers in accounting and a clear division of costs into variables proportional to the volume of production, and constant or structural, independent of the volume of production, which is the basis for using in accounting direct costing method. At this stage, intergovernmental and professional accounting organizations analyzed national and regional accounting systems and began to create an international accounting system.
5 stage- strategic. At this stage, the creation of an international accounting system as a whole has been completed and the concept of strategic accounting has appeared, which ensures the adoption of strategic decisions and their analysis based on strategic planning and accounting data.
Appendix 1 shows the main stages in the development of accounting against the backdrop of the evolution of human knowledge.
3. The development of accounting in the early Middle Ages in countries
Western Europe
In the early Middle Ages, the traditions of Roman accounting continued in Western Europe. According to researchers, accounting conservatism has dominated for centuries, and approximation as a principle underlay people's actions.
Reporting and inventory remained the main accounting methods, but people of the Middle Ages believed that oral evidence was more reliable than written, since the latter could be faked, but oral could not.
In monastic farms, the compilation of inventory lists, which contained systematic records, became widespread. The following groups of property were distinguished in them: buildings and structures; household inventory; products; cattle. This information was found in the instructions of the manager of agricultural records. The income statement was submitted once a year, two separate registers were kept for accounting for expenditure transactions: the owner's costs, the costs of the economy. To derive the balance, all entries in the current accounting registers were counted by type of value. Relations between payers and recipients were formalized with the help of tag accounting. On the tag-tablet in the countries of Western Europe, a cut was made corresponding to a certain amount of payment. The plate was split lengthwise, one half remained with the recipient (receipt order), and the second was given to the payer (receipt). If the halves are folded, then you can verify the correctness of the entries. So "linear recording" was carried out. This technique was also widely used to reflect the registration of the movement of values within the economy between financially responsible persons. The tags were used as "bills", as "checks" in free circulation, and as a means of paying off debts instead of cash.
In the Middle Ages, a profession of itinerant scribes arose, who compiled reports for a fee. During the heyday of the Middle Ages, special accounting treatises appeared, which set out the rules for paperwork. Accounting was of great importance in the state economy; it was exemplary in England. From the "Book of the Last Judgment" (1086) we learn that the inventory was taken as the basis for accounting. In the English Treasury, the Chamber of the Chessboard was in charge of the finances of the country where the accounting register of the chess form originated.
By the 13th century, a system of accounting for cash transactions had developed in the countries of Western Europe. Each credit entry contained the following details: date, amount in words and at the right edge of the page - in numbers, from whom the money was received, the basis for payment. The receipt of money in foreign currency and in terms of local money was recorded. Each expense entry contained the following details: date, reference to the administrative document, recipient of money, amount, purpose of the expense, method of payment. At the top of each page of the cash book, the year was indicated. Income and expense books were kept in two copies: one for the cashier, the other for the accountant. Corrections in all books were performed by only one special notary. Book balances were withdrawn either monthly or once every six months by recapitulation - the totals were grouped for each posting.
The development of economic activity required certain forms of control over the quality of accounting information. In the 13th century, the institution of controllers-auditors appeared in England.
Simple accounting was dominant in Europe; it existed in the accounting of merchants in the form of a chronological record of current turnover in notebooks. Each fact of real economic life is opposed by an informational fact, which is a mirror image of the first. Since different facts are measured in different units, the registration is carried out in the same units of measurement in which the facts themselves arose.
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
FEDERAL STATE BUDGET EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION
HIGHER PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION
"SAINT PETERSBURG STATE UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMY"
FACULTY OF ECONOMICS AND FINANCE
ACCOUNTING AND ECONOMIC DEPARTMENT
CHAIR OF ACCOUNTING AND AUDIT
Subject "Accounting"
On the topic "Comparative assessment of international accounting systems"
Completed by: Student (kA)
Kudrevich A.D.
Group E-215
Scientific adviser:
Badmaeva Zh.D.
St. Petersburg 2013
INTRODUCTION
One of the most important tasks facing Russia today is the integration of economic entities into the international community. The main element of this process is to increase the confidence of foreign partners in Russian enterprises. In addition, Russia recently became a member of the World Trade Organization.
In recent years, the influx of foreign investment into the country has noticeably increased, and the scope of credit activities has expanded. The largest Russian oil companies, Gazprom and others, have taken a number of practical steps to attract the foreign capital necessary for their further development. The ongoing processes of globalization of the world economy make it necessary to develop international uniform principles for the preparation of financial statements in all countries participating in integration.
This makes it relevant to study the various existing accounting models in the world. Accounting is not only the language of business, but also one of the means of international communication. Most of the largest corporations today are transnational corporations that are national in capital but international in their activities carried out abroad. And in order for this activity to be successful, companies could understand each other, transparency of operations was ensured, high-quality financial information was obtained, it is necessary to understand the basic principles of preparing financial statements in the partner country.
The subject of the study is the main accounting models in the world and the systems of economically developed countries.
The purpose of this work is to compare international accounting systems, determine their features and identify which model influenced the formation of the Russian accounting system.
The following tasks were set:
-consideration of the stages of the historical development of accounting;
-analysis of factors influencing the formation of accounting systems that determine their specifics;
-consideration of the most famous accounting models and systems, identification of their features, comparison with the Russian accounting system.
HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT OF ACCOUNTING
Before moving on to the types of accounting models, let's consider what stages of development accounting has gone through to the present day, because this is what determines the specifics of national accounting systems.
The appearance of accounting is attributed to the period around 3600 BC. Confirmation of this was found by archaeologists who deciphered the Sumerian letter on clay tablets, called "cuneiform". The earliest records in "cuneiform" belong to the temple officials of Mesopotamia, who had to count how much grain, butter and meat was produced on the farm, how much was given to workers for food, how much was left at the temple's disposal.
The development of accounting was caused by the needs of life and took place in parallel with the development of economic relations.
The material prerequisites for the formation of accounting were the collapse of the tribal system, the emergence of the family and private property. For the safety and rational use of the individual economy, the owner strove for a systematic recalculation of property.
Accounting was further developed when exchange occurred. From the world of commodities spontaneously stood out a product of labor, constantly in great demand. The commodity that expressed the value of all other commodities and for which they were all exchanged became money. Money in the exchange made it possible to measure goods and played the role of a universal equivalent. They were used to summarize information about the property. With the advent of money, the entire commodity world was divided into two poles; goods and money. And from that moment on, two meters began to be used in accounting - natural and monetary.
In the middle of the 15th century, printing was invented and one of the first printed books and the first theoretical study in the field of accounting is treatise XI “On Accounts and Records”. This treatise is part of the work of the Franciscan monk, scientist, mathematician of world renown Luca Pacioli (circa 1445 - circa 1517) "The sum of knowledge in arithmetic, geometry, relations and proportionality" (1487), published in Venice in 1494.
This treatise described the double-entry method for keeping records of trade transactions and the application of the balance sheet. Pacioli in his work formulated the goals of accounting, the main of which he considered: obtaining information about the state of affairs and determining the financial result of transactions.
The treatise "On Accounts and Records" by the Italian Pacioli contained everything that was known about accounting during this period, and this knowledge began to spread to other countries and contributed to the further development of theoretical thought.
Thus, the first stages of development of accounting took place in Italy. A significant contribution to the development of the theory of accounting was made by the American school of accounting, one of the representatives of various areas of which were I. Fisher and D. Scott.
At the beginning of the 20th century, both in Europe and in America, the belief prevailed that the balance sheet is the central category that explains all the details of accounting and is considered as the basis of all financial reporting.
Scott developed guidelines that should link practical accounting with the economic and legal environment in which the accountant has to work.
The main of these provisions are:
· truth - financial statements must be presented with sufficient accuracy, and contain a convincing picture of the financial position of the company;
· impartiality - financial statements should be prepared neutrally in relation to the interests of certain participants in the economic process;
· adaptation - all rules, procedures and accounting practices should be reviewed from time to time, adapting to the changing conditions of the socio-economic environment;
· consistency - accounting methodology should change under the influence of objective reasons, and not momentary desires of management.
In the early 30s of the XX century, these principles went almost unnoticed, but in the 70s they gained recognition, which led to the development of accounting (financial) accounting standards, known to us as GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles - generally accepted accounting principles). ). This accounting model is followed by the United States, Great Britain, Australia, the Netherlands, India, South Africa and some other English-speaking countries, but it is not universally recognized in all countries.
The main goal of international standards is to develop a unified content of the basic principles and concepts of accounting, to achieve a uniform content of accounting terminology, a unified approach to building forms and interpreting financial reporting indicators.
The transition to the application of international accounting standards began in Russia in 1992.
The accounting system that existed in the USSR under the conditions of the planned economy was determined by the public nature of property and the needs of state management of the economy. The main consumer of information generated in the accounting system was the state represented by sectoral ministries and departments and planning, statistical and financial bodies. The existing system of state financial control solved the problem of identifying deviations from the prescribed models of economic behavior of organizations.
In connection with the change in the system of public relations and the civil law environment, an Accounting Reform Program was developed to bring the national accounting system in line with the requirements of a market economy and international financial reporting standards.
The main task of the reform is to create acceptable conditions for the consistent, useful, rational and successful performance of the accounting system of its inherent functions in a particular economic environment.
The key element of reforming accounting and financial reporting in accordance with international standards is the development of new and clarification of previously approved provisions (standards) on accounting, their implementation in practice.
BASIC ACCOUNTING MODELS AND THEIR FEATURES
international accounting
Taking into account modern approaches and trends in the development of management theory, accounting can be considered as the formation of systematized information about objects and the compilation of accounting (financial) information on its basis.<#"justify">· orientation of financial statements to meet the information needs of tax and other public authorities;
· the obligation to follow the approved principles for recording transactions;
· obligatory use of the Chart of Accounts approved by the state, etc.
However, the GAAP system is the most common in Russia. This is due to the fact that the United States accounts for the largest amount of Western investment in the economy of our country. The need to provide potential partners with reliable financial information in a form familiar to them and allowing them to make informed decisions when building business relations with Russian enterprises and organizations plays an important role. In addition, there is a trend in world practice, according to which the statements of large European corporations are recalculated during publication in accordance with GAAP. Finally, many principles and conceptual foundations for building an accounting and reporting system in the United States can be of great methodological importance both for improving accounting in Russia and for state building in general.
The Russian model was reformed from the system of cost accounting (the model of the countries of Eastern Europe, this model was formed in our state) and its basis is state regulation, but quite a lot of elements of the Anglo-American model have been introduced into it. And now we have a variant of state regulation of the accounting of economic entities using a fairly wide range of methods of economic regulation.
In the scope of the Anglo-American model, there are no such significant differences as for the continental model. The Latin American model has two distinctive features: firstly, financial statements are formed based on the interests of the state, and not the investor, and secondly, the cost indicators in the statements are calculated after revaluation for the annual inflation rate. Thus, the first difference concerns only the principles of the Anglo-American model, and the second difference concerns both models.
The Dutch version maintains all the main features of the model, but the formation of accounting rules and standards implies an initial theoretical rather than a priori priority.
The states of Southeast Asia as such do not have a separate model, but the formed Federation of Accountants of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is engaged not only in raising the status of the accounting profession, but also in harmonizing national accounting methods, and this can give an appropriate result.
Thus, the world practice has two large and organizationally clearly formed and honed in many years of practice accounting methods, which are superimposed by variations of new accounting formations. And these new models, remaining within the framework of the parent model, use either the methods of a competing model or their own national characteristics. Accordingly, based on the actual needs of economic and accounting work, the models that were originally formed as diametrically opposed, in new versions, begin to combine in the most diverse way.
So the Russian model, while remaining continental, does not adjoin a group of specific states, but adopts the GAAP system of standards. Latin American, having, in fact, economic rationing, focuses reporting on the state as the main consumer. The ABS countries are implementing a transnational Chart of Accounts.
At the same time, an international model begins to form, which does not belong to any state and is supposed to be used by transnational corporations. This model is based on IFRS standards, which are currently being actively adapted to the possibility of using different models by representatives of states, in the variant of the possibility of harmonizing methods, recalculating indicators, etc. The same option involves keeping records without using the standard Chart of Accounts, a step that also makes it possible to combine different methods.
Thus, in the modern development of international accounting models, two directions should be distinguished.
The first is the development of new models, the formation of which goes to combine the foundations of classical models and regional or national characteristics of states.
The second is the formation and development of an international model as an organizational and methodological basis for accounting in multinational companies, when the accounting actions of financial accounting on the basis of IFRS are clearly regulated. Dual reflection of information does not imply mandatory codification, but constantly determines the impact on the state of the balance sheet and the Profit and Loss Statement. Tax requirements are met in accordance with national laws, and internal management accounting is maintained in accordance with the internal requirements of the company.
A comparative analysis of the main models of accounting and reporting is shown in the table.
Table1. Accounting Models
Accounting models Distinctive features Anglo-American Orientation to the interests of investors, creditors and shareholders Continental High degree of state intervention in the accounting policies of organizations Latin American Orientation to the requests of state bodies for conducting fiscal policy International Orientation to the interests of transnational corporations and foreign participants in the international currency market Islamic
ANALYSIS OF FACTORS DETERMINING THE SPECIFICITY OF ACCOUNTING SYSTEMS
In the previous chapter, we involuntarily had to mention some of the factors that determined the specifics of a particular accounting model when describing it, since they are key criteria in the analysis and comparison of accounting systems. Now let's take a deeper look at this issue.
Accounting is determined by the environment in which it operates. Each country has its own history, its own values, political system. The same can be said about accounting. Thus, accounting principles in the US and other countries differ significantly. These differences are due to both the variety of existing forms of economic activity organization and the impact on the practice of accounting for external factors (political, economic, social, geographical, etc.)
It is interesting to note that a certain similarity of the "environment" in two different countries, as a rule, also determines the presence of many similarities in the accounting systems used in them. In some countries, for example, in the United States, information generated in the framework of financial accounting is primarily aimed at meeting the needs of investors and creditors, and usefulness from the position of making managerial decisions is the most important criterion for its quality. In other countries, the role of accounting and the priorities developed within its methodology may be different. For example, this is the provision of reliable information and control over the proper implementation of state tax policy. It is this purpose of accounting that is recognized as fundamental in most countries of South America.
In some countries, the accounting system is implemented on the basis of the priority of macroeconomic goals, in particular, the achievement of the specified growth rates of the national economy.
Macroeconomic processes have a number of features that are essential for accounting practice: inflation, unemployment, etc. In this case, questions about the usefulness of specific information about tax rates, general economic policy for investors and creditors may fade into the background.
We will identify the main factors influencing the development of accounting.
The primary factor behind the fundamental differences between national accounting systems is the information needs of users of financial information.
The Industrial Revolution in the USA and Great Britain led to a sharp increase in their national wealth. As companies grew, so did their need for capital, with much of it coming from the emerging and growing wealthy middle class. This process had a significant impact on the development of financial accounting in both countries. First, the number of investors and creditors grew. Their composition became more and more diverse, many companies passed into corporate ownership. Secondly, the owners of companies (investors) were increasingly separated from operational management, transferring it to professional hired managers.
In such a situation, financial accounting information becomes the most important source of data on the welfare of the company. There is a practice when shareholders receive financial reports from management personnel to monitor the efficiency of resource use. It is this circumstance that predetermined the focus of financial statements on the information needs of investors and creditors. This orientation of financial accounting has existed in the US and UK for many years.
Moreover, securities markets and exchanges have been established in these countries. As a result, the financial statements of companies are distinguished by significant analyticity, and determining the profitability of economic activity as one of the characteristics of the effectiveness of the work of managerial personnel is the goal of financial accounting.
In other countries (Switzerland, Germany, Japan, etc.), financial policy is determined by a small number of very large banks that satisfy a significant part of the financial needs of business. At the same time, they merge into joint-stock companies. The information necessary to justify additional financial investments, in this case, is formed, as a rule, in the process of direct contacts between interested parties. This way is simpler and more efficient, since the company has a limited number of creditors (in particular, it can be one large bank). The governments of these countries also require the publication of some information about the companies, so the latter are forced to prepare financial statements, but in a less detailed form than American companies.
In this case, reporting is aimed primarily at protecting the interests of creditor banks. Accounting practices here are characterized by some features, in particular, conservatism in the valuation of assets, a certain overstatement of accounts payable, which allows, in case of financial difficulties, to provide your bank with some freedom of action in fulfilling obligations, a reduction in dividend payments to shareholders, etc.
Thus, in countries where the main creditors of enterprises are banks and the state, reporting will be strictly focused on the needs of fiscal government agencies and large credit organizations. If the formation of capital is directly related to the degree of development of the stock market and there is a fierce competition for additional sources of investment, then the reporting of enterprises will be guided by the requests of potential investors and creditors. Such reports contain a maximum of analytical data, namely: all additional information about the structure and territorial location of production facilities, about shares and shareholders, about the company's contribution to improving the welfare of society, about the level of professional training of employees, etc.
In France and Sweden, accounting has a slightly different orientation. The governments of these countries play a decisive role in the management of national resources, and enterprises are obliged to adhere to government economic policies, in particular in the framework of macroeconomic planning. Governments not only control the financial capabilities of businesses, but also act as an investor or lender when necessary. Here accounting is oriented, first of all, to the needs of state planning bodies. Firms are forced to follow unified accounting and reporting standards, which to varying degrees simplifies and improves the efficiency of government bodies.
Then, as the second factor influencing the formation of the accounting system, one can name the priority of the macro- or microeconomic interests of the state. Macroeconomic interests imply an interest in expanding the scale of export-import operations, selling shares and securities on the stock exchanges of different countries, attracting foreign capital to the country, and joining the elite of the world economic community. Naturally, a country that has set these goals in the first place is faced with the need to unify its accounting principles in accordance with generally accepted norms and standards. If the priority at the moment is focused on solving domestic economic problems, the accounting and reporting system will be influenced by established national traditions, which, one way or another, have their own characteristics in each country.
Undoubtedly, the essence of the relationship between business and its financial creditors is changing quite dramatically with access to international financial markets. In this case, it is necessary to satisfy the information requests of not only domestic, but also external creditors, which automatically leads to deviations from national standards in the field of accounting and reporting.
Thus, among the factors influencing the content of accounting practices in a particular country, we can distinguish:
-type of creditors and investors as the main users of accounting information (individuals, banks, government bodies);
-the number of individuals and legal entities involved in the capital investment process;
-participation of investors in business management;
-the degree of development of the market and securities exchanges;
-degree of participation in international business;
-priority of macro- or microeconomic interests of the state.
Accounting, like politics and ideology, knows no national boundaries. Accounting technologies are exported and imported, thus ensuring the similarity of accounting systems used in different countries. Thus, the United States has a significant impact on Canadian accounting practices due to geographic proximity, close economic ties, the active participation of Canadian companies on American stock exchanges, etc. The same can be said about Mexico, which has close trade ties with the United States, the Philippines as their former protectorate, Israel, and others.
Japanese companies are increasingly using American accounting standards, which is explained by the expanding expansion of Japanese capital to the Americas. The UK, especially England and Scotland, also has a significant influence on the development of the theory and practice of accounting in the world. Almost all former British colonies keep records according to the British model. Among them are Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Pakistan, India, South Africa. The influence of Great Britain here is so great that not only accounting ideas and methods are exported, but also accounting personnel, as well as a system for their training and certification.
France and Germany also influence their former colonies in accounting practices, but to a much lesser extent.
Since the beginning of the 70s of our century, the EC (The European Community) has made an attempt to unify accounting within the community. Great Britain, France and Germany have fundamental differences in assessing the role and purpose of financial accounting. However, being members of the community and having common economic interests, they are aware of the need and expediency of intensifying efforts to converge national accounting systems.
Thus, the strengthening of political and economic ties between countries is increasingly affecting national accounting systems.
From the foregoing, we can conclude that accounting practice is influenced by external factors:
The difference between economic systems.
The accounting system of highly industrialized, high-tech economies differs significantly from the accounting systems of countries with agricultural technologies (intangible assets are present in highly developed technologies).
The level of ownership concentration.
Influences the disclosure requirement: the wider the property, the more detailed information about it should be.
Differences in funding sources affect reporting and disclosures.
In the UK, the US reporting is focused on the needs of investors.
In Switzerland, Germany, Japan - on the interests of banks, creditors.
In Sweden, France - on the state planning bodies.
Development of tax laws.
In some countries, taxable income is the same as income for financial reporting (Germany, Japan).
In other countries, the tax and financial report are different (UK, USA)
Differences in inflation rates.
In countries where there is slow, slight inflation (Germany, Japan, USA), historical cost (historical) is used in accounting.
This principle lies in the fact that the assets of the enterprise, the volume of sales, production costs in accounting are reflected at prices prevailing at the time of these transactions (at cost), and is based on the stability of the monetary unit used in accounting. The realism and reliability of financial information compiled in accordance with this principle is inversely proportional to the rate of inflation.
The economies of countries such as Germany and Japan have recently experienced little pressure from inflation and clearly followed the principle of historical cost. South American countries, in which inflation is often followed by periods of hyperinflation, periodically change the valuation of their assets, using the general price index for recalculation.
Thus, the application of the principle of historical cost in accounting is an indicator of economic stability in the country. If accounting uses special conversion techniques to estimate the value of assets, inflation has a significant impact on the economy.
difference in political systems.
The political system of a country is one of the most significant factors, since its philosophy and goals determine the scope of economic policy from a centrally planned to a market-oriented economy, from private to state ownership.
Differences in legal systems.
All countries, depending on the type of legislation and its impact on various aspects of life, can be divided into those with:
a) a developed code of laws;
b) general legal orientation of the legislation.
In most Western European countries, legal systems have a direct impact on accounting. Laws contain guidelines, certain accounting rules and procedures. Accounting directly depends on legal requirements, because the government determines and enforces these requirements (France, Germany, Argentina, Russia).
The second group of countries is limited to a set of common law laws that indicate the limits within which legal and natural persons have freedom of action. Accounting standards in these countries are not regulated by the state, but are determined by various professional organizations of accountants (Great Britain, USA).
Differences in education systems.
The degree of development of production, management, financial system, training of professional personnel together influence the formation of the accounting system in the country. A higher level of production development requires the formulation of more complex accounting problems that can be solved by highly qualified accounting personnel. Therefore, if the level of vocational education in the country is low, the accounting system cannot be organized at a high level. The same can be said about the level of preparation of users of financial statements. The level of their professional culture determines the complexity of the information that must be obtained from economists and accountants.
However, it is possible that even in a developing country the level of development of accounting is at a high level, financial reports meet the requirements of transparency, reliability, usefulness for making economically sound management and investment decisions. This situation is observed when the business is organized as an international corporation, the headquarters of the companies are located in industrialized countries, from where the current management is carried out and the accounting personnel and management personnel are exported.
The influence of religion on basic accounting concepts.
(Islamic model in the East - compliance with Sharia law).
The system of organization of accounting in the Russian Federation is wholly and completely under the auspices of state authorities; professional organizations play the role of advisory research groups. A new chart of accounts for the financial and economic activities of organizations has already been developed and implemented, accounting regulations (PBU) are being adopted, the prototype for which was IFRS, and tax accounting has become a separate accounting industry.
However, Russian PBUs are not an exact copy of the International Standards, since not all principles, terms and concepts are consonant with the norms and requirements of our legislation, in particular the Constitution of the Russian Federation. Thus, traditional features are preserved, and a kind of “symbiotic” accounting system is being formed, which, on the one hand, is focused on the principles of International Financial Reporting Standards, and on the other hand, is strictly controlled and regulated by state authorities.
As an illustrative example of "duplication" of IFRS, one can cite the experience of the Republic of Kazakhstan, where the accounting system is based on standards that are fully consistent with international ones. It also adopted a unified accounting chart of accounts, but differing, compared to the Russian one, in significant detail, the absence of active-passive accounts, which ensures simplicity, “transparency” and analytics of the financial information provided.
The further evolution of accounting systems in the countries of the former socialist camp directly depends on political stability, the degree of development of modern production technologies, the financial market and the capital market.
It should also be noted that the countries of continental Europe and the American GAAP accounting system have a certain influence on the formation of accounting systems in Eastern Europe. In this situation, it is not entirely correct to speak of International Financial Reporting Standards as a modern "panacea" in the field of accounting. It is quite possible that under the influence of the accounting organizations of countries defending their economic interests, the IASB will make some changes to its constitution in order to strengthen interaction with national organizations that establish their own accounting standards in their states.
It is necessary to pay attention to the fact that between all these factors and the degree of development of the accounting system there is a "feedback". The lack of a proper accounting system hinders economic progress, the influx of foreign capital and adversely affects the development of foreign economic relations of different countries.
CONCLUSION
It cannot be argued that accounting in one country or another is better or worse than in others. Models and accounting systems are created to achieve certain goals and are closely related to the culture and history of countries. The study of the development of accounting in different countries allows us to understand what accounting problems are solved in certain countries, why the methods and concepts of accounting in different countries differ from each other, and much more, thereby enriching accounting science and practice by studying the achievements of foreign colleagues
Economists M.R. Matthews, M.H.B. The Pereras believe that a comparative analysis of accounting systems and methods makes it possible to identify typical accounting development models, which is of particular importance for better understanding the possibilities of their change under the influence of environmental factors, for anticipating problems that a country may face, and also for choosing a feasible solution. based on the experience of countries with similar accounting models.
It is important to note that, due to globalization, most countries are trying to bring accounting rules closer together and thereby bring accounting standards to a common denominator. A number of organizations are involved in the unification of accounting and reporting standards. In October 2002, an agreement was reached between the IASB and the Accounting Standards Committee (USAS) to bring IFRS and GAAP closer together, resulting in the adoption of a convergence program to eliminate the differences between them. This will mark an important milestone for most countries that are guided by IFRS and GAAP, in particular for companies from different countries that are trying to enter international capital markets, and, of course, for Russia.
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M. Abushenkova Fascinating history of accounting // Edited by the magazine "Glavbuh". - M.: CJSC "Aktion-Media", 2013. - 64 p.Who, when and why invented double wiring? How did accounting journals and balance sheet come about? And in general, how did people come up with numbers and bookkeeping? It is very interesting for an enthusiastic accountant and just a person to know. After all, history is not only instructive stories about the past. It is also the key to the real...
Marina Abushenkova, Senior Lecturer, Department of Accounting, Regional Financial and Economic Institute (RFEI). The author of one of the popular headings of the magazine "Glavbuh" - "Accounting for Beginners".
In preparing the publication, materials from the RFEI (rfei.ru) were used
© ZAO Action-Media, 2013
About the mysticism of accounting, electricity and Robinson Crusoe
Did you know that during the Renaissance, the accounting profession had a romantic appeal? Its representatives five hundred years ago endowed with supernatural powers. After all, according to the general opinion, they had to be in charge of the processes that set in motion the wealth of the world ...
This wave of mystification began in 1494, when the world's first book on accounting was published. Its name is "The sum of arithmetic, geometry, the doctrine of proportions and relationships." And the author is the great Italian scientist Luca Pacioli. This man is considered the father of accounting science all over the world. And the day of publication of his famous book - November 10 - is celebrated as the birthday of accounting.
What was so mysterious about her? Guessed? Of course, the description of double entries and double postings! They saw the key to the magical world of numbers, which then hovered over everyone ... Each titan sought to penetrate this world, master it and control it. Everyone believed that it was the number that underlies the universe.
Accounting metaphors then explained even the very world order. For example, electric charges were called "positive" and "negative" thanks to the former accountant Benjamin Franklin. Studying electricity, he came to the conclusion that it is a kind of liquid substance found in all substances. Describing it, he marked its excess with a plus sign, and its deficiency with a minus sign...
What is the nature of electricity! Recall Robinson Crusoe, who kept a diary that surprisingly resembled an account: "I divided the page in half and wrote "bad" on the left and "good" on the right, and this is what I got ... ".
However, paradoxically, the “birthday” of accounting is not a zero reference point. But rather, the peak of knowledge accumulated at that time. But what happened before this moment? Of course, there are a lot of other important events, discoveries and insights!
This book contains the most interesting stories about how the discoveries took place. You can not only plunge into the fascinating world of the past, but also better understand the realities of the present. And funny illustrations will add mood! Read with pleasure!
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First, we decided what to consider. Then they invented numbers
How did numbers and arithmetic appear? It turns out that all this arose due to the need of our ancestors ... in accounting. Of course, no one has yet formulated it that way. But the prerequisites that led to the formation of the modern accounting system began to mature a very long time ago - much earlier than any mathematical wisdom. Here are four main reasons for the birth of accounting.
Reason No. 1: Initially, it was necessary to keep counts in the household
How to make sure that exactly as many sheep returned in the evening as they went to pasture in the morning?
Imagine that you are the owner of a large herd of sheep, which you drive out to pasture every day. You don't know what arithmetic is, what numbers are, and you don't know how to count. How do you make sure that exactly as many bleating silly ones returned in the evening as went out to pasture in the morning? The simplest thing is to put as many small pebbles in a bag as there are sheep in your flock. In the evening, you can send one sheep to the pen, pulling out one pebble at the same time. Are there a few extra stones in the bag? So, exactly so many pranksters were lost in the pasture. However, it is inconvenient to carry a bag of pebbles with you. You can’t leave it at home either: children can play with it, and the pebbles will be lost.
It is much more convenient to make notches on a wooden staff. One sheep - one notch. In ancient Europe, this method of calculation was very common.
The Incas went furthest in the development of counting methods. They conducted household calculations using colored cords. One of the cords was the base, while the others were attached to it. Each cord marked a place where certain items were stored. Its color spoke of what kind of place it was. And each kind of knot tied on this cord denoted one or another object.
Score tags - the first legal document
Notched wooden sticks have long played the role of... legal documents. When one person borrowed money from another, the amount was indicated by notches on a wooden rod. Then the stick was broken, and the halves were distributed. One was given to the one who lent his money. Another - to the one who took them. If the folded halves exactly matched each other, this served as legal proof of the transaction. After the debt was repaid, they were burned. Now historians call such sticks with notches counting tags.
For a long time, pebbles and notches were enough for unpretentious home calculations.
For example, one of the nodes reported that wine was poured into amphoras, and the other informed that oil was stored in the same amphoras. The result was a whole ledger. She weighed, by the way, almost four kilograms !!! To read it, it was necessary to skillfully decipher the combinations of colors, the arrangement of threads and various types of plexuses.
Reason #2: Needed to factor in fees for rulers and temples
For a long time, pebbles and notches were enough for unpretentious home calculations. But states were formed - and rulers ascended the thrones, religions were formed - and priests received power ... And now - various taxes were introduced.
States were formed - and rulers ascended the thrones, religions were formed - and priests received power ... And now - various taxes were introduced, and keepers-accounters appeared in temples. In fact, the first accountants.
How many pebbles do you need to count all this? And you can't do without accounting. Both the pharaoh and the high priest wanted to be sure that the collected supplies would last until the next harvest and tax collection. Therefore, keepers-accounters appear in palaces and temples (well, or people in similar positions). In fact, the first accountants. They will start inventing the accounting system. And the account itself.
Reason #3: Due to many calculations, special devices and language of numbers were needed
"Calculation" ... Which of our colleagues with you is unfamiliar with this word, which means calculation. Do you know where it came from? It turns out that from the Latin calcul, that is, a pebble.
The more pebbles were required for counting, the more acute the question of some new optimal device arose. The first counting "device" (bags, laces and sticks - this is not serious) was the abacus - the progenitor of modern counting.
An abacus is a wooden board with several hollowed-out strips-recesses. One of them - to reflect units, the other - for tens, the third - for hundreds. By adding or removing pebbles in different stripes, it was possible to successfully carry out calculations. Very handy for the time!
However, notches also had their important advantages. First, in terms of information storage. And secondly, from the point of view of convenience of record. One notch "X", made on a tree or a clay plate, replaced ten pebbles. Yes, and it was much easier to store it.
It is from the incisions that the Roman numerals originate: I, II, III ... When people got tired of cutting five sticks to represent the number 5, they improved the shape of the notches and introduced a new sign - “V”. Then they thought of a combination of sticks - “IV”, “VI”, “VII”, etc. Then larger numbers appeared - “X” (ten), “L” (fifty), “C” (one hundred), "M" (one thousand).
Reason #4: The division of labor triggered the development of trade
As you understand, a large number of sheep, pharaohs or temples were not enough for the development of accounting. This science became what it is today because millions felt the need for it.
How did these millions “ripen”? First, there were more agricultural holdings. And the farms themselves have become more solid. Work on fertile fields gave good harvests, and people began to exchange part of the products.
Secondly, over time, families began to specialize in one thing: gardening, horticulture, viticulture, cattle breeding and poultry farming, crafts or trade. After all, doing all this at the same time is very difficult!
It is the division of labor that very quickly led to a jump in production and trade. And if there is something to sell and buy, then again accounting is necessary. And so it happened that accounting became necessary not only for individual farms, but for the whole society.
Tutankhamen, Cleopatra and accounting
Some historians have this opinion: the ancient Egyptian deities are actually not quite Egyptian. Ah ... ancient Slavic! Like, some of our ancestors long ago left in search of better lands to the south. And they left traces of their highly developed civilization in India, and in Greece, and in Egypt ... This, of course, is not known for sure. But the fact that modern accountants have inherited important accounting principles from their ancient Egyptian colleagues is a fact. This includes rationing, and inventory, and joint accounting of income and expenditure.
What in ancient Egypt was considered in spring and autumn
"What a question?! - the ancient Egyptian would be sincerely surprised. - Of course, the area of fields. Because it's different every time." In the spring, it was measured before the flood of the Nile. And in autumn - after the flood of this great river-nurse. Field descriptions were the most important records. They made it possible to predict the harvest and determine the tax on it.
In general, Ancient Egypt was a state with the so-called centralized economic system. That is, all the land belonged to the pharaohs. But at the same time, it was distributed among the households: something was exclusively disposed of by the ruler, something belonged to the temple, the rest was used by private landowners.
An interesting feature: landowners had to hand over the entire crop to the warehouses of the pharaoh. After that, the ancient accountants looked at how much harvest was delivered. compared with a pre-calculated norm. The surplus was returned to the landowner, and the shortage was recovered from him. It is easy to guess that the owners of the land were very interested in the exact calculation of the harvest and strictly controlled the division.
Accounting - the father of mathematics and geometry
Accounting arose because people began to count their possessions (see “First they decided what to count. Then they invented numbers” on page 6). But as soon as it appeared, it became clear: for a full-fledged accounting, it is necessary to urgently develop other branches of knowledge. As a result, mathematics began to develop rapidly. Arithmetic operations were invented: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Proportions and fractional numbers appeared. And geometry was born. But how, without it, to take into account the size and boundaries of agricultural fields, which each time the flood of the Nile changed? It turns out that accounting is the father of mathematics and geometry.
Workers were usually paid monthly. And most often in natural form. Well, that is, water, bread, vegetables, tonic drinks (alcohol, in other words). By the way, even then there was rationing. When issuing allowances, they did not forget about the category of the worker. A strictly defined "food package" was provided for ordinary workers. When it came to senior staff, they proceeded from the needs of the previous day. And for the priests, the maintenance norms were calculated as follows. They took annual temple income and divided it by the number of days in a year. If there were a lot of supplies in the temple, then the daily norm turned out to be large.
Salaries in ancient Egypt were issued according to the statements and within a strictly established period. If the leadership violated it, then the socially active Egyptians went on strike.
Your own crackers are better than other people's pies
So, everything grown had to be handed over to the treasury. Therefore, at first, the landowners wrote down only what they had to present to the rulers and priests. Let's say grain. But at the same time, the owner of the plantation did not yet have his own accounting department.
Do I need to keep a personal account at all? Oh what a must! Wealthy Egyptians quickly realized this and began to count their personal property not only on the fingers. Evidence of this is the Bulak-18 papyrus, which is already about 4000 years old (see the table on page 17).
| Calculation of the things of the master, let him be healthy and cheerful, 3 years, 2 months, the Spill period, 26 days | Various bread | … * | Pitchers of beer | Jugs of dates | Pitchers… | Greenery |
| List of things of the master, let him be healthy and cheerful, 3 years, 2 months, Spill period, 26 days | 1630 | 130 | 1 | 52 | 200 | |
| This is left over from 25 days, 2 months, period... Spill, 3 years | 210 | 487 | 12 | |||
| It came as the reception of the day | 716 | 125 | 30 | 1 | ||
| It was added by royal order from the temple of Amon | 100 | |||||
| Total reception of this day | 1940 | 1203 | 267 | 1 | 82 | 201 |
| Simultaneously with this amount issued ... to people at home | 575 | 150 | 52 | 1 | 52 | 100 |
| ... big house ... | 525 | 38 | 50 | |||
| The food given... | 820 | 102 | 30 | |||
| Food given... to the house of the rulers | 30 | 3 | 1 | |||
| Total issuances of this day | 1700 | 1000 | 251 | 1 | 82 | 201 |
| Remainder | 240 | 203 | 16 | Fine | Fine | Fine |
* An ellipsis means that the hieroglyph is lost and therefore cannot be translated.
It is a ledger of just a transitional period. From accounting for everything in a row - to accounting for certain and vital property. For example, in the papyrus "Bulak-18" there are references to transactions of other farms, even figures are given. But they don't count anymore.
Pharaoh inventory: throne no. 1, throne no. 2...
What accounting document of Ancient Egypt can be called the most ancient? Let's discard the pebbles and notches. Let's leave only what really resembles modern accounting registers. Then it turns out that such a document is an inventory. Or a description of the property. This is a book in which the pharaoh's custodian or temple attendant described all the goods available in the household. Each item in the inventory was assigned a number. It was put on the thing itself. Thanks to this, it was possible to double-check at any time what we actually had.
The scribe picks up the inventory and sees that it contains two thrones with different inventory numbers. He finds these thrones and checks the inventory numbers on each of the relics. A serviceable throne is marked with a tick. And the one that fell apart is deleted from the inventory.
Let's say the scribe took the inventory in his hands. And he sees that two thrones are written in it under different inventory numbers. He finds these thrones and checks the inventory numbers on each of the relics. A serviceable throne is marked with a tick. And the one that fell apart is deleted from the inventory.
So, by opening the inventories, the pharaoh or the high priest at any time could find out what kind of property he owns.
Alas, such an accounting system could not prevent theft. If they did not find any vase, then it was impossible to determine who dragged it and where. After all, no one wrote about it.
If something has gone from somewhere, it means that it has come somewhere.
The ancient Egyptians understood about the relationship between income and expenditure long before the discovery of the law of conservation of energy. To prevent theft, they started another book in which they recorded all the things that came in and went out of the household.
Now the scribe checked the property of the pharaoh, having in his hands two books: inventories plus a book of income and expenditure. Seeing from the inventory that for some reason one throne was missing, the scribe opened the book of income and expenditure and looked where this throne was sent. After making sure that he was taken to the workshop for restoration, he calmed down and continued to check.
A sample of the ancient book of income and expenditure is still in the same papyrus "Bulak-18" (see the table on page 17). If by the end of the day no remains were marked there, then this was considered a remarkable result. In modern times, an accountant would simply write "zero". However, in ancient Egypt, this figure was not used, and the papyrus indicated "good", meaning that the products were not stale and left the warehouse fresh.
This Egyptian practice of counting leftovers daily has survived to the present day. Open the cash book and you will see it.
Accounting statements on papyri
What is accounting without reporting! It was important for the pharaohs to know what state resources they had at their disposal. Moreover, in ancient Egypt, annual reports were put on public display. So that residents know how the state lived the previous year and what reserves it has.
An ancient accountant is almost a financial director
In ancient Egypt, the role of accountants was played by scribes. That is, officials who made inventories of property. Their professional hierarchy was built in accordance with the type of accounting work: the scribe of the cereals of Egypt, the head of the scribes of the land, the accounting of fields, people, troops, barns, the keeper of seals, etc. The scribes had high authority and great power. At the same time, they also carried a lot of responsibility. At any suspicion of fraud, a civil servant was removed from work and transferred to the category of farmers. Moreover, even his children forever lost the right to occupy the privileged position of a scribe.
At that time there was no single meter - cost. All data were given in physical terms. Tell me: in this case, how to put together 20 tons of grain and 5 calves?
Compiled several types of financial statements: for several years, annual and intra-annual. In particular, reports on the collection of grain, products and other valuables in state warehouses were included in the annual report. The intra-annual period covered four months and corresponded to the seasons. It also contained reports on the collection of agricultural products. Unlike the annual report, this report was more detailed.
Reporting back then was, to put it mildly, laborious. Why? Yes, because at that time there was no single meter - the cost. All data were given in physical terms. Tell me: in this case, how to put together 20 tons of grain and 5 calves? Agree, it is much easier to add the cost of livestock to the price of grain ... But then no one had thought of that yet.
Do you know how to bake 323 types of bread?
That is how many bread recipes can be found in the papyrus "Rinda" - a textbook of ancient Egyptian accountants (scribes). It belongs to the second millennium BC. This reference book also provides tips on how to make oil and grow cereals; how to distribute wages among workers, how to calculate the consumption of grain for making bread and beer; how to determine surface area and volume, how to convert one measure of grain to another, and so on. Education future scribes began at the age of five. And their studies lasted twelve years. Future accountants were trained in special schools and on internships under the guidance of experienced teachers.
Primary on demonic bricks
“Bricks burnt in hell and inscribed with demons”... What do you think this mention from the Koran is about? It turns out, about clay tablets with cuneiform texts. The accountants of the ancient Sumerian state kept records on them.
Cuneiform is an amazing letter resembling traces of bird's paws. It originated in Sumer 3000 BC and migrated to Akkad. The nature of the letter depended on the writing material.
Most often, a tablet was made from soft, wet clay - small so that it could be held in the palm of your hand. She received the name "dub" (dub). They wrote on both its sides with the pointed end of a reed stick. She was pressed into the clay and made a stroke - a wedge. Over time, each cuneiform icon was replaced by a geometric conventional image.
On clay tablets, Sumerian accountants (and later Akkadians and Babylonians) drew up everything: both primary documents, accounting cards, and summary documents. And these ancient experts figured out how to seal and stitch documents.
Accounting units in Sumer and Babylon were varied. For example, the manufactured brick was accepted both by the piece and by the completed volume. On the bricks, the name of the king and the date were necessarily indicated. Moreover, the records were applied to the heads of clay nails, which were then fired. And then they drove into brick walls at a distance of a meter from one another.
As a result, it turned out that the Tower of Babel is a huge accounting document! After all, it took 85,000,000 bricks to build it, and entire generations of rulers built it...
What else was recorded in Sumer and Babylon
Clay was not the only writing material. At first, the ancient accountants of Mesopotamia kept records mainly on tablets made from it. Nevertheless, over time, clay bookkeeping began to disappear, as, indeed, cuneiform writing itself. The last tablet from Babylon dates back to 75 AD. In addition to clay, the accountants of Sumer and Babylon used wooden planks, stone, metal, and ivory. A leather scroll from the archives of Murashu's business house was found. They also made notes on papyrus. And in the Akkadian texts, “waxed tablets” (that is, covered with wax) are repeatedly mentioned ...
Tower of Babel - a huge accounting document
In shipbuilding, the vessel's capacity was considered a measure, in metalworking - the weight of products, taking into account waste. That is, there was no single monetary unit in Babylon. All settlement operations people took into account in real terms. In their books, scribes recorded the number of things they had, not their cost.
In general, Babylonian accounting first arose in temple and royal households. And then it began to be conducted according to uniform rules throughout the state. The methodology was great. Let's take personnel records. There were three directions: the number of personnel, accounting of working hours, the cost of maintaining the labor force. Employment was formalized by contracts, which indicated the length of service, the nature of the work and the amount of payment. Workers were classified by age, categories, qualifications, professions. The staff was divided into administrative and service.
Much attention was paid to the calculation of production costs. The documents contain records of the use of raw materials, the expenditure of working time in man-days, and the output of products.
"Cashed in" and "spent"
Income and expenditure in Babylon were designated in different ways: accepted, delivered, written off as expense, the entire stock was invested ... But the words “credited” and “used up” became the most universal and common.
Do you recognize modern accounting speech? Moreover, among the ancient accountants, these phrases were related to the entire content of documents. And not just numbers.
At first, income and expense records were one-time, so they were kept directly in warehouses, and not in special storage facilities. And later, when special rooms began to be allocated for archives, there might not even be doors there!
Indeed, over time, on the basis of one-time accounting plates, they began to make accumulative ones. Separately for income and separately for expenditure. In receipt documents, the received objects were listed by type, the source and accompanying persons were indicated, the controlling official was named, and the result was summed up. In the expenditure documents, the entries are the same: the types and quantity of valuables left, the reasons for the costs, the result, the name of the controller. The final indicators could be both general and for each type of product.
There was no joint accounting of income and expenditure in Babylon. This generated a lot of documents, from which, unfortunately, it was still impossible to obtain all the necessary information. So, it did not contain data on initial and final balances. But for the warehouse, this is very important information!
Remaining data could only be found in consolidated documents. In them, ancient accountants summarized the indicators of income and expenditure of property. But they did it only at the beginning and at the end of the period. Daily counting of the remains in Babylon was not practiced.
Babylonia - the birthplace of "accounting on cards"
The clay tablet dried quickly, which was a big technical challenge. But such quick accounting on disposable plates helped to accumulate information. This method made it possible not to lose information when it was necessary to sum up.
Gradually, in Babylon, both principles began to be used - one-time and cumulative records. And later the Babylonian principle of accumulative accounting formed the basis for the construction of most modern accounting documents. Perhaps that is why Babylonia is considered the birthplace of "accounting on cards."
For shortage - confiscation of property and shackles
One shepherd lost his temple sheep and for this shortage he gave his house to the priests in the presence of seven witnesses. And the supplier, who delivered low-quality products to the temple, was shackled ... Liability in Mesopotamia was high and unnecessarily tough. The degree of guilt was determined by the results of the investigation. One of them was held in 539 BC - due to a shortage of 20 sheep. It turned out that nine years earlier the shepherd had given part of the sheep to someone who promised to pay in offspring and wool for five years. The independence of the shepherd was declared illegal, although he himself thought differently and formalized the deal with a document.
How the chip will fall ...
Different chips meant different types of assets. A cylinder is a sheep, a cone is a jug of oil... At first, the chips were placed in clay "envelopes" - containers the size of a fist.
Apparently, the accountants of ancient Babylon knew this expression ... They counted property with the help of chips - small clay and stone objects. Different chips meant different types of assets. The cylinder is a sheep, the cone is a jug of oil...
First, the chips were placed in clay "envelopes" - containers the size of a fist. Their inconvenience was that when it was required to get to the contents, they had to break the container.
In order not to do this, scribes put imprints of chips on "envelopes". And then they completely abandoned the "envelopes" - they left only prints on clay. There are 186 known such tablets with impressions, which date back to about 3200-3000 BC. The plates were of different sizes: receipts - 3-4 cm, contracts - 7-9 cm, reports - 20 cm or more.
Ten seals and oral testimony
In contracts, the most important seals and names were placed in a prominent place. Imprints with less important information were placed on the edges of the plates and in free places. Sometimes there could be up to a dozen seals on one tablet. Each of them confirmed the authenticity of the document. And, in fact, it performed the functions of the current signatures and seals. Imagine stripes of identical images that cannot be faked. These are the ancient seals. By the way, the carver - the manufacturer of the seals, was indicated in the transaction documents as a witness.
However, oral evidence was often accepted on a par with seals and signatures. Once a debtor sold his son named Abitab for 2/3 hin of silver (about 6 g). Then the boy either ran away, or his father stole him, but the owner presented two witnesses to the transaction, after which the court decided the case in favor of the buyer.
Clay envelopes - protection against counterfeiting
The sheets must be "numbered, laced and sealed ...". Do you recognize the standard rule from the instructions for completing the reports?
It turns out that seals and “lacing” have been in use since Sumer and Babylon. Legally important documents were placed in envelopes and sealed. Here each envelope was a thin sheet of clay. The text was duplicated and stamped on it. As a rule, this structure was rolled around the edges. Before forging the document itself, the fraudster would first have to deal with such a clay envelope. And it immediately became noticeable!
The Babylonian analogue of modern lacing is special seal bulls made of bitumen. They fastened leather or papyrus scrolls. If the accounting registers were on the tablets, then the bulls were tied to them with laces. Their remains have been preserved among the tablets to our time.
Yes, and in the documents themselves, they also sometimes made a hole to string them on a string or stick. For order, at the bottom of each tablet, if its text was to continue, they attributed: “tablet number such and such, series such and such.” And for clarification, the first line of the following plate was added.
Sumerian colleagues knew how to sing and play music
E-dubba is the house of tablets. This was the name of the schools where the accountants of Sumer and Akkad studied. For a long time, education was state-owned. It was held at temples, which were then cult, scientific, and commercial institutions. Pupils attended school until they were 20 years old. It is interesting that they all addressed each other only as "colleague".
Graduates of E-dubba could work not only as accountants-scribes. They were generalists. In addition to counting, writing and the basics of accounting, they mastered singing and musical art, knew rituals and law. During the Babylonian period, large public schools disappeared. Scribes-accounters began to be trained privately at the places of practical activity.
Coins, balance, economics and Aristotle
While there was no money, accountants counted the number of things. Is it bad or good? Look here. Suppose you become aware that a vase is missing. But a vase can cost three rubles or three million dollars. If you do not take into account the value of your property, but only remember its quantity, then how will you know whether you are a rich person or already bankrupt?
The use of a single monetary meter in accounting - cost - began in ancient Greece. They also came up with the balance sheet and such a science as economics.
They beat us with a hammer and give it to us. What is this?
Have you guessed the riddle? That's right: coins! The first money in the form of coins was invented in Lydia, during the reign of King Croesus (7th century BC). Judging by ancient historical documents, he possessed untold wealth. Therefore, people who have a lot of money are still said to be “rich as Croesus”.
Ancient Greece consisted of many policies - city-states with adjacent lands. Each policy issued its own coin. 1136 types of such coins are known. The most authoritative was the Athenian drachma. She was the main monetary unit of Greece.
Get up, banker branded with a curse!
How did the Greeks solve the difficulties of exchanging one coin for another? The way was found by enterprising slaves. They took a fee for the exchange itself, and then from the accumulated amounts they began to give loans at interest. These people were called diners. Translated from Greek, trapezit is "a person at the table." The trapezeites sought to redeem themselves from slavery and become free citizens.
Not all money is coins
Before coins, things were a means of exchange - skins, salt, beautiful shells ... And also livestock: sheep, cows, horses. It was inconvenient to pay, because you can’t divide a skin or a bull into small parts. So, you also had to have “changes” - say, bags of beans. And carry it all with you to the market. And somehow store! It turned out to be easier to change pieces of metal. From the pieces they began to make mugs and mint coins. They became the first cost meter in accounting.
Meal slaves became the first bankers
In the 5th-4th centuries BC, exchange meals (shops) turned into private banks. And the trapeziters became the first bankers. The Greeks carried out banking operations on the principle of an income-expenditure book. And it was they who began to use the term "has", which passed into the Latin language as "credit".
The main problem of the first bankers was legal defenselessness. “We, whose business it is to finance shipping enterprises and to invest our capital in the hands of other people, know only too well that every time the borrower has an advantage over us. He takes our money, real cash in hand, in return leaves a letter on a piece of paper worth one halq or so, promising to do business with us honestly.” This is a text from an ancient court document.
Conflicts between bankers and their clients often led to fraud and bankruptcies. But even the threat of deprivation of life could not stop the development of banking.
"Do not despise those who are versed in the management of property ..."
The ancient Greek aristocracy devoted all its time to lofty matters - art, philosophy, politics... Free citizens despised the craft of a meal-changer. And in general, any economic activity in Ancient Greece was not considered a worthy and respected occupation. Management and business accounting is no exception. Only wholesale trade was recognized as more or less decent.
Ancient Greek aristocrats considered economic and managerial activity an unworthy occupation.
Because of this, the theory of mathematics developed regularly, but the applied “financial” part of science was almost forgotten. The famous writer, historian and philosopher Xenophon warned his compatriots: “Do not despise those who are knowledgeable in managing property, since caring for a private matter differs from caring for a public one only in scale; in other respects, these concerns are almost the same, and the main feature of similarity lies in the fact that neither one nor the other can do without people, and the private business is carried out by people of the same kind as the public.
And here is how the philosophers, who nevertheless ventured to study the theory of finance, justified themselves: “If someone begins to reproach us for what we write about the management of the economy ...”. Agree, this phrase from the work of Philodemus on economics now seems strange.
Economics - housekeeping law
Do you know where the term "economy" comes from? From the Greek oikonomia - management of the economy. Literally translated, “oikos” means house, household, and “nomos” means law.
They tried to describe the practice of management and turn this knowledge into a theory: “Everything should be delimited, and the profitable should be more than the unprofitable ... and profitable business should be distributed so as not to put everything at risk at once” (Aristotle).
Profitable from unprofitable can be separated only with the help of accounting. To do this, you need to open a sales account and compare turnovers with costs. Moreover, the sales account must be kept by areas of capital investment.
By the way, where to invest, the aristocrats still did not care. For example, they considered it a good thing to receive income from horse breeding, and unhappy from metal mining with the help of slaves. It turns out that money still smells!
The financial result in Ancient Greece was determined both during the year and at the very end. They did this according to the income and expense logs. The resulting loss was repaid within three months. And the profit was distributed among the participants in proportion to the invested funds.
Much attention was paid to the preliminary estimate. Aristotle wrote about the benefits of spreading the year's expenses by months. Philodemus criticized him, believing that "it is absurd to distribute for each month and reduce for each year with constant uniformity."
Visible-invisible and "talking tools"
"Divide and rule!" It's not about property classification by any chance? She was treated very carefully in ancient Greece. There were several ways to account. The most common is to divide property into visible and invisible. The first category - land, slaves, utensils, livestock, houses ... And the second - cash and loans issued (accounts receivable).
But there was another approach. Here the funds were divided tritely: into money, land, movable property, livestock, slaves, stocks of funds, buildings. By the way, the Greeks often took into account the buildings by their constituent elements - doors, roofing, and so on. All this was valued as a movable part of the property. Slaves were considered "talking tools". And they were entered into the inventory along with all equipment, materials and means of labor.
The masters must get up before the slave...
... and go to bed later. This is what Aristotle wrote. In his opinion, farm owners should not sit idly by. This is the only way to ensure profitability and reduce costs. To do this, it was recommended to manage the economy well, acquire large property, take care of the safety of the acquired and the former. Accordingly, the following were considered important qualities of a manager: the ability to acquire, preserve, keep in order and use property.
How did the tabulars compose the codices?
Etruscans... Ancient Rome is based on their civilization. It is a fact. But where they came to Italy, historians do not know exactly. According to one version ... from the Slavic lands. Allegedly, once our ancestors settled on the Apennine Peninsula. And they brought with them both judicial law, and knowledge of agriculture ... And much more, from which the achievements of Ancient Rome later grew.
However, the Romans also borrowed the cultures of other peoples. After all, Rome was the most powerful conquering state. True, the adaptation of foreign knowledge was somehow commercial. Cicero wrote about his fellow citizens that they "thank the gods, they are not like the Greeks and in their studies of mathematics they are limited only to practically useful things."
At the same time, the Romans were seriously engaged in economics, accounting and jurisprudence. Many of their financial terms have passed to us. These are debit, credit, deposit, acceptance, transaction, table, alimony, paragraph, commerce, etc.
"Let Rome perish, but the Law prevails"
The legislation of many modern countries is based on Roman law. This ancient code of laws regulated various spheres of life. Including financial.
The ancient Romans considered banking to be socially significant. And they insisted that many of the credentials be made public: “It is bankers’ accounts that should be published ... for their occupation is of public importance ...”
After whom money is called coins
Pieces of metal began to be called coins in ancient Rome. Money was minted there in the temple of the goddess of fertility Juno. She is the goddess Coin. Asses were the earliest Roman coins. They were cast from copper and given a rectangular shape. Over time, asses began to be made round, with the image of the two-faced god Janus. He was considered the god of all beginnings. Then came the silver denarius, equal to 10 asses. And also a sistertium - one-fourth of a denarius. In addition to the gods, the coins depicted the heroes of myths and tools of monetary business: an anvil, hammer, tongs.
And of course, Roman lawyers took bookkeeping very seriously! Even the accounting technique was regulated by legal norms: “Labeon includes mutual return and lending (credendi) in money and the obligation to pay, payment (debiti) in trade matters to the maintenance of accounts: you should not open a new account until the debt is fully paid; upon receipt of a pledge or obligation, one should not rush to pay; it does not apply to the correct keeping of accounts. But what the banker presents for payment must be published, information about this comes from banks.
Wooden codes and tabular bookkeepers
Roman lawyers took accounting very seriously: even accounting techniques were regulated by legal norms.
The code can be civil, tax, criminal, family, etc. But why did they begin to call a thick book with laws with this very word? It turns out that the code (codex) - from ancient Rome. It comes from the Latin code - tree trunk.
The first codices were wooden tablets fastened together at one end by two, three or more. These plates were with protrusions along the edges. The resulting recess in the middle was filled with wax, on which they wrote.
For a long time, Roman accountants kept current records mainly on such tablets. It was they who served as the prototype of the ledger, which was later called the ledger.
By the way, the technique of writing largely influenced the methodology of accounting. Just imagine: in front of you are two adjacent pages of the ledger. Undoubtedly, this may lead to an idea: it is convenient to divide information according to a certain attribute. The choice of a sign depended on the purpose of registration. For example, income and expenses for the owner of funds. Or issuing a loan and repaying it. The division of funds by type could also be provided: food, money, clothing, etc.
In addition to the codes, there were other documents. Their names apparently depended on the purpose or the nature of the records. In ancient texts, tabellas are often mentioned. This word has many derivatives. Tablin (tablinum) - a niche for storing business papers in homes and institutions. Tabellarium (tabellarium) - department for accounting of national economic resources. And finally, tabular - accountant!
Papyrus scrolls and reusable parchment
In addition to wood, many things have been tried as a material for writing. Canvas, stone, wood boards, tree leaves and the inside of the bark. Titus Livy mentions lists in the form of linen scrolls that were kept in the temple of Juno. They died in a fire in the 390s BC.
Official reports and other important documents were put on boards that are not susceptible to damage: marble, bronze, copper, lead ... Books of Florentine trading houses of 1200-1345, made of ivory, have survived to this day. The same tablets were in France until the 19th century, in Hamburg until 1363, in Halle until 1783 ...
Of course, all this is very laborious. It is more convenient to work with papyrus that came from Egypt. From it, the Roman tabulars made scrolls and divided them by titles (index, ululus). The scrolls were wound on wooden rollers with buttons (sometimes even gold) at the ends. There were also papyrus codices of 2-9 sheets. But they also had a significant disadvantage - they were fragile and absorbed moisture.
Around 180 BC in Pergamon (the kingdom of the Seleucids), a new writing material was invented - parchment. It was made from calfskin and was expensive but durable. Due to the high price, parchment was reused many times: the notes were scraped off and new text was entered. And so they did 6-7 times. Texts of this kind have received the Greek name of palimpsests.
Bankruptcy is a broken bench
According to one version, the word "bank" comes from the Italian banco. In translation, this is a bench or a table.
In the mornings, Italian money changers brought their benches to the market or to the port, placed them near chests with coins from different countries and served overseas merchants (in general, they exchanged foreign currency). Now guess how the word bankrupt appeared? Rotta is Italian for "broken". Accordingly, banco rotta is a broken bench. Or an empty bank.
Who and how invented double entry
"Double entry is one of the most remarkable inventions of science," said Goethe. “It is called into being by the same spirit as the systems of Galileo and Newton,” added the eminent economist and sociologist Werner Sombart.
And it is true. The first entries for the debit and credit of two accounts appeared in Italy during the Renaissance. According to Engels, it was "an era that needed titans and that gave birth to titans ...". The names of many of them are remembered by the whole world: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Nicolaus Copernicus, Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama...
But do you know who invented double entry and ledger accounts? The name of this great man was lost in distant history. Just as the names of those who wrote Russian folk tales have been lost. But it's not worth getting upset about it. Because the identity of the inventor is not so important to us. More importantly, why and how double entry was invented.
Accounting is man's best friend
Ask any modern Russian businessman: why does he keep accounting at his enterprise? As a rule, the answer is: because the state requires it.
Let's ask the second question: what if accounting were canceled tomorrow? Almost any entrepreneur will say that he would breathe a sigh of relief. Because today's accounting prevents him from working.
But let's forget that accounting is imposed on us by the state. And we will improve it so that it turns from the worst enemy into the best friend.
Just think: after all, in ancient times there was no tax inspection. No state forced merchants, bankers and manufacturers to keep accounting records. No one was required to report for taxes. No one came to check knowledge of accounting legislation and fined for non-compliance with it.
In those distant years, accounting was invented purely voluntarily, without any coercion. And they used it only because it was useful and helped in the work. It was easier to work with him. Developing accounting, bankers, merchants and manufacturers did not think that they were loading themselves with additional and unpleasant work. On the contrary, they wanted to lighten it and get themselves an assistant. Here is a little legend about how it happened.
Law of conservation of energy in accounting
One Italian merchant was engaged in the sale of wine. And each time, making calculations, for a long time he could not figure out to whom, how much and for what he should pay. In the head and in the merchant's notes, his own and other people's debts were constantly intertwined with each other, and it was very difficult to unravel them.
One day his son, who received a good education, came to visit him. The young man decided to come up with such a form and method of accounting records for his father, so that he would never get confused again. As soon as an error creeps into the father's records, the record itself will point to this error.
Accounting should measure the general characteristic that is inherent in any kind of property.
First of all, the inventor drew attention to the fact that property is measured in different ways. Wine in liters, barrels - also in liters and the same quantity in pieces, grapes - in kilograms. Because of this, all the confusion.
And then the inventor comes up with a brilliant idea. Accounting should measure the general characteristic that is inherent in any kind of property. And in general, any process - after all, the work of apprentices also needs to be measured.
The wise man was not in vain known as an educated person. He knew that the law of conservation of energy operates in the world. According to him, energy does not disappear, but only passes into another form. Many sages of that time spoke about this - Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, Heraclitus ...
Cost is a kind of energy
Energy is just that which has a universal characteristic. This means that any property of a merchant - both movable and immovable - can be measured by the amount of energy. As well as the work of any hired worker. The name of this energy is value. Beautiful, is not it?
Proving that value is a form of energy is pretty easy. When physicists want to give a short definition of energy, they say this: “Energy is the ability to do work. And work is any process similar to lifting a load to a height. In other words, it is an unnatural process that does not happen by itself.”
Cost also drives people to do work. Try hanging a wallet with money on a tree. And although climbing trees is an unnatural process, the wallet will be pocketed right there. And the faster, the greater its value! Therefore, value is energy.
“As long as you take into account different things: barrels, wine, money, you will never have good accounting,” the inventor told the merchant. - To get the desired result, you must imagine that you have one single item - the value, expressed in money. Forget that you have barrels, grapes or wine. Imagine that you have only their value.
Cost does not appear or disappear
It does not disappear and does not appear. Value only passes from one carrier to another and changes its form.
How was this rule followed in merchant accounts? No way. Suppose today he gives away the wine. So, today he will write it off from his books in kind. And the money will be given to him only in a month. So, only in a month he will reflect this receipt.
If such gaps occurred once or twice a year, there would be no confusion. But every day a merchant makes a lot of sales and purchases, and every day there are several such gaps. Keeping them in memory is almost impossible. Hence the confusion. What to do?
He must and he believes
Debit is Latin for "he owes" and credit is Latin for "he believes". But in our country, beginners in accounting are advised to use other associations. Debit - something "adds" (comes). It is on its half that the received property is recorded. A loan “steals” (expends) property. After all, it is on his half that he is written off from the account. This free translation well emphasizes the peculiarity of the two halves of the account. The transfer of value from one account to another is called an accounting entry. And the only possible way of posting is from credit to debit.
The inventor thought so. Energy never disappears anywhere. And value is a form of energy. Eureka! This means that the cost also cannot disappear or arise just like that! Including company accounting.
“A medal must have two sides. And any event in the enterprise should also have two sides: incoming and outgoing. You can’t just write off property from accounting books or show only income, - he said to his father. - Suppose you give away and write off some property. Immediately you should receive something instead of him and write it down in your documents. And vice versa. You get some property. At this very moment, you have to write something off.
T-shaped accounting accounts
How can accounting simultaneously reflect both sides of the event - both income and expenditure?
To do this, the inventor proposed to create T-shaped accounting accounts, which also have two sides. Receipt - debit and expense - credit.
Recall how the account entry from the working chart of accounts looks like. Above the left end of the cap, near the letter T, they write "Dt", which means "DEBIT". And above the right end - "Kt" (means "CREDIT").
You may ask: why is debit on the left and credit on the right? The fact is that with such an arrangement of debit and credit, it is very difficult for people who are used to writing from left to right to make a typo or mistake.
Suppose a merchant takes 200 lire from his cash register and deposits it in a bank. Then it turns out that in his accounting, 200 liras flow from the credit of the CASH account and flow into the debit of the BANK account.
To reflect this event in his accounting, the merchant must put both accounts in front of him and write down 200 lira twice: first in the credit half of the CASH account, then in the debit half of the BANK account.
As you can see, with such an arrangement of debits and credits, it is very difficult to write down the number 200 on one account and another figure on another account and not notice such an error. This is called double wiring. It helps the accountant to control himself very well!
But what if in the current month the merchant wants to return 100 lira back from the bank to the cashier? Then he will make another posting on the same T-shaped accounts. Now the number 100 will be recorded on the credit of the BANK account and on the debit of the CASH account.
Thus, two amounts will be recorded on the CASS account: 200 lira in credit and 100 lira in debit. The same two amounts will be recorded on the “BANK” account, only in reverse order: 200 lira in debit and 100 lira in credit.
The Father of Accounting - Dear Luca Pacioli
Renaissance, 1494. Columbus discovered America two years ago. And in Italy, Luca Pacioli's book "The sum of arithmetic, geometry, the doctrine of proportions and relationships" was published. It happened on November 10th. Thanks to this book, historians have decided to give Luca Pacioli the title of father of accounting.
So what did Luca Pacioli do?! First, he summarized the knowledge that accountants have accumulated. Secondly, he raised them to the level of science - mathematics. And thirdly, he published the world's first printed book on accounting. It was preserved in the libraries of Italy and glorified its author throughout the world.
Treatise On Accounts and Records by Luca Pacioli
The name of the legendary book is "The sum of arithmetic, geometry, the doctrine of proportions and relationships." Its structure is very intricate. The book is divided into two parts. The first of them is devoted to arithmetic and mathematics, the second - to geometry. Each part in turn consists of departments. Sections are divided into treatises, and treatises are divided into chapters.
In this book, we are interested in the ninth section, devoted to the application of mathematics in business. In this section, Pacioli talks about the system of weights he developed, considers the rules for accounting for bills, and interest. The department devoted to mathematics in commercial business consists of 12 treatises. Among them are the following: on partnerships, on leases, on barter and barter transactions, on bills of exchange, on interest calculations.
But the most important for us is the eleventh treatise - "On Accounts and Records." In this treatise, Luca Pacioli summarized the accounting experience in Venice. It was here that the scientist described the method of double entry accounting.
We emphasize: described. Luca Pacioli nowhere and never stated that it was he who came up with double entry accounting - the basis of the basics of accounting.
Yes, he couldn't figure it out. Because in Venice, even before the publication of his printed book, there were already handwritten books on this subject. The very first of these was considered the "Book of Accounts" by Leonardo Fibonacci, written in 1202. In addition, in the commercial schools of Venice, even before the publication of Luca Pacioli's book, students were taught in detail how to make double entries in accounting.
Nevertheless, the work of Luca Pacioli was of great importance for the development of science. Pacioli has rightly earned the title of father of accounting. In support of this, a memorial plaque hangs on the wall of the municipality of San Sepolcro (Luca Pacioli's hometown), on which is written: "Luca Pacioli, who was a friend and contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci and Leon Battista Alberti, who first gave algebra the language and structure of science, who applied his great discovery to geometry, invented double-entry bookkeeping and gave in mathematical works the foundations and unchanging norms for subsequent research.
5 facts from the biography of the father of accounting
Luca Pacioli was a great scientist of his time. It is always interesting to learn more about such people. How did he come to his celebrity?
In his youth - an artist
From his youth, Luca Pacioli studied with the painter Piero della Francesca.
From his youth, Luca Pacioli studied with the artist Piero della Francesca, whose name thundered throughout Italy. However, the workshop of the master was more like a university of culture than a school of painting. After all, all the artists then sculpted, sculpted, composed, invented, etc. Moreover, great attention was paid everywhere to mathematics. In the Renaissance, artists believed that it was the number that underlies the universe. They sought to penetrate into the world of numbers, master it and manage it. Harmony tried to calculate and subdue.
To young Luca, a born mathematician, the number seemed to be a universal key that opens the way to truth and beauty. However, if beauty and the world of painting were in the first place for his artist-teacher, then for Luke the primacy belonged to truth and science. It was this attachment that made him leave the arts.
At the age of 25 - a teacher of arithmeticLuke becomes the tutor of the three sons of a wealthy merchant. He attends the lectures of the famous mathematician and helps the merchant in keeping the account books. And at the age of 25 he publishes his first book - a textbook of commercial arithmetic.
At 27 years old - a monkIn 1472, Luke arrives in Naples, where he takes the vows as a monk. The reason is a great desire to devote himself to science. The fact is that then only the church could open the way to this beautiful and unknown world.
At 32 - ProfessorMathematical studies did not go unnoticed. And already in 1477, at the age of 32, Luke received a professorship at the University of Perugia. And he begins to give lectures, which were included in the book that made him world famous.
At 41 - Master of Sacred TheologyScience took precedence over pedagogy. A few years later, Luca Pacioli switched to theology and philosophy. That is why he has already become a master of sacred theology.
At the age of 49 - the father of accountingAll this time, Luca continued to study mathematics. He, already a respected scientist, was invited to work in Venice under the auspices of the praetor (head) of the republic. It was there that Pacioli published his most famous book on November 10, 1494.
Luca Pacioli + Leonardo da Vinci
They say that Leonardo da Vinci wanted to write a textbook of elementary geometry. And you know what stopped him? In the midst of work, he accidentally picked up a book by Luca Pacioli. After reading it, he abandoned his work, explaining: he can’t do better than Pacioli, but you shouldn’t do worse. Perhaps it was this event that led to further rapprochement and cooperation between the two geniuses. Leonardo da Vinci illustrated Luca Pacioli's Divine Proportion. And Luca Pacioli helped Leonardo da Vinci with mathematical calculations to create the Sforza equestrian monument - the statue that brought Leonardo da Vinci worldwide fame.
What accounting is the best
Someone may ask: in which country is accounting the best, most convenient and correct? The question is incorrect. In each country it is different and in each country it is the best ... for its country. Why? Yes, because it was customized everywhere to fit its specifics. The peculiarities of business development, historical traditions, mentality, and political system also mattered. Therefore, several accounting models have developed in the world.
British American model
"Courage, initiative, enterprise - how much they mean, and even luck in addition." This is a phrase from Theodore Dreiser's The Financier. It well characterizes the development of early capitalism in the USA and Great Britain. Small enterprises grew into medium ones, medium ones into large ones. The shares of most companies were traded on the stock exchange... And the accountants kept records primarily for investors.
The most important thing here is to provide owners with detailed information that is convenient for analysis. By what means is a secondary question. State intervention is minimal here. As a rule, everything is limited to a set of general laws.
continental model
This model is used in Japan and in many European countries. Particularly in Germany and Switzerland. In these countries, business from the very beginning was owned by large banks. But in France and Sweden, the influence of the government was great. Macroeconomic planning played an important role in these countries.
In any case, continental accounting is subject to strict legal norms. Its main task is to control the timely and full payment of taxes. Russian accounting initially developed according to this model.
Latin American model
"Invest in inflation - that's the only thing that goes up all the time." Under this motto, business developed in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and other South American countries. The governments of these countries have been struggling with the fact that money is depreciating all the time. Therefore, it is customary to adjust reporting for the general price level (which is constantly changing anyway).
Islamic model
"Dividends for the sake of dividends is a sin." Usury is prohibited by the Koran. This is how they think in Muslim countries. Religion has had a strong influence on the accounting of these countries. In the same reporting documentation, it is impossible to show the mechanism of financial non-operating profit. At the same time, the resources and debts of companies are taken into account at market prices.
international model
This model is based on international financial reporting standards - IFRS for short. In accordance with them, it is possible to compare records of different countries. To do this, it is proposed either to adapt classical models for international purposes, or to create a separate international model based on the IFRS methodological framework. And as a result, bring the existing accounting methods as close as possible.
Italy. The Italians were the successors of the traditions of ancient Roman accounting, they used the same accounting register codes, which they began to call the Commemorative Book, the Memorial and the General Book, but kept them in a monetary meter. And when the capital account was entered into the General Ledger, a double entry appeared. At first, accounting developed independently in each company, then typographic books appeared, and printed accounting appeared. Its appearance is associated with the two names of B. Cotrugli and L. Pacioli. B. Cotrugli was a merchant from Ragusa and wrote the book "On Trade and the Perfect Merchant" in 1458, and in 1573 it was printed. Luca Pacioli was a world-famous mathematician, a friend of Leonardo da Vinci, in his work “The sum of arithmetic, geometry, the doctrine of proportions and relations” (1494) in the “XI Treatise on Accounts of Records” outlined the double entry procedure. L. Pacioli called the main goal of accounting - the conduct of one's affairs in due order, so that it would be possible to receive without delay any information both regarding debts and claims. With the development of double entry in Italy, two interrelated accounting purposes arise: legal - prompt identification of the amount of debts and claims; economic - the proper organization of their affairs. To achieve the goals set for accounting, it was necessary to fill in accounting registers, in connection with this, for many centuries to come, all accounting was defined as the art of keeping books. The Italian school was characterized not by the treatment of general accounting issues, but by a thorough description of the accounting procedure. The order of chapters in Pacioli's treatise fully reproduces the sequence of registration. He used a personalized approach, the essence of which is that accounts that take into account inanimate objects are considered as accounts of individuals. He created the basic information model of economic activity, in which two points are important, called the two postulates of Pacioli:
1) the sum of debit turnovers is always identical to the sum of credit turnovers of the same system of accounts;
2) the sum of debit balances is always identical to the sum of credit balances of the same system of accounts.
When characterizing the fact of economic life, Pacioli singled out four indispensable points that should be reflected in accounting: 1) the subject; 2) object; 3) time; 4) place. These moments correspond to four questions: who, what, when, where?
The absence in the practice of accounting for the division of accounts into synthetic and analytical led to an overload of balance sheet items of medieval firms. An interesting point in the practice of compiling a medieval balance sheet was that the difference between debit and credit turnovers, which arose as a result of arithmetic errors in calculations, was not reconciled, but was written off to profits and losses.
Thus, by the end of the 17th century, Venetian or Old Italian forms of accounting were created in Italy, including the Commemorative, Journal and General Book. Garati F. improved the old Italian form, dividing the accounts into synthetic and analytical, and this option was called the new Italian form of accounting.
Since the beginning of the 19th century, two directions in the development of accounting have been formed in Italian accounting: the first one derived accounting from the relations arising in connection with the movement and storage of values - this is a legal direction; the second was based on the consideration of values - this is the economic direction.
Under the influence of the rivalry of these areas, three accounting schools were formed in Italy: Lombard, Tuscan, Venetian.
Lombard school. Its creator was F. Villa (1801 - 1884). Its purpose is to control the organization of the economy and property. Control involves the preservation of values and the efficiency of their use, the opening of reserves, ensuring maximum results at minimum cost. This position made Villa the father of Italian bookkeeping. Thus, Villa's accounting was a complex economic and legal discipline, he divided double entry and the information that it carries into legal and economic.
Tuscan school. The founder of the legal direction of accounting theory was F. Marchi (1822 - 1871). Marchi singled out four groups of persons in the enterprise: 1) agents (financially responsible persons); 2) correspondents (persons with whom settlements are made); 3) administrator; 4) the owner. Separate accounts corresponded to each group. All persons associated with the enterprise are in certain legal relationships, the meaning of which was revealed in accounting. Each fact of economic life is reduced to a change in legal relations between participants in the economic process. Therefore, the legal structure of the enterprise determines its economic position. The administrator is recognized as the central figure in management, all business transactions pass through his account. Marchi was a proponent of personalization - there is a person behind every account. This approach justified itself in large enterprises, but in small firms, where the owner performs all the functions, Marchi suggested using personification, explaining the situation by the fact that the owner, as it were, projects his functions onto accounting objects.
Another major representative of the Tuscan school was D. Cerboni, the creator of logismography. For Cerboni, accounting is the science of administrative functions and administrative actions. Thus, accounting is considered as part of jurisprudence. His teaching provided for a hierarchical sequential differentiation of accounts and the structure of the accounting apparatus, and this structure should correspond to the organizational structure of the enterprise itself. Cerboni argued that accounting as a science, considering housekeeping in its entirety, determines the norms on which the various degrees of responsibility of business managers and agents are based.
Venetian school. The founder was F. Besta (1845 - 1923), who developed the economic direction in accounting. He argued that accounting as a means of economic control studies the movement of values, which is associated with certain actions for:
1) management;
2) management;
3) control of agents of the economy.
By the beginning of the 20th century, Italian scientists in accounting distinguished three sciences: logismology - the study of accounting accounts; statmology - the doctrine of the balance sheet; lemmalogy is the study of remnants. Logismology was closest to traditional accounting, statistics turned into an analysis of economic activity, lemmalogy was developed in the Anglo-Saxon countries, using a complex mathematical apparatus in the doctrine of inventory management. With a variety of views, the Italian school can be considered as a single whole. Its representatives are united by a purposeful meaningful interpretation of the main categories of the science of accounting. Even the differences between the legal (Tuscan) and economic (Venetian) directions are insignificant. Both the Tuscans and the Venetians of the Lombard school considered accounting as a means of management, only the former interpreted the goals of accounting as managing people, and the latter as managing resources - the values involved in the economic process. In the latter, accounting turned into the science of controlling economic activity. The Italians were characterized by an approach to accounting, which was interpreted in the spirit that the balance sheet value of profit should be identical to the taxable amount, which was quite consistent with the legal interpretation of accounting.
France. Since the second half of the 17th century, French accounting has dominated Europe. J. Savary (1622 - 1690) argued that accounting is an integral part of the science of managing a separate single enterprise. French accountants are characterized by the primacy of accounts over the balance sheet, they deduced a double entry from the accounts, and not from the balance sheet. They explained the double entry as follows: "It is necessary to debit everything that comes at the disposal of the owner, and credit everything that comes out of the owner's disposal." Most French authors interpreted the balance as a document that determines the financial result. Savary introduced three new ideas on the balance-to-inventory relationship:
1) the need for constant and strict periodic inventory;
2) the realization that the balance follows from the inventory;
3) inventory and balance must serve
means for the revaluation of property, claims and liabilities.
French authors contributed to the development of the composition and structure of accounting registers, their information links, techniques and the creation of three forms of accounting: French, American and Belgian. The French school began with the ideas of the Italian form, with its three books: Commemorative, Journal and Main, but later the Commemorative Book was abandoned.
French scholars believed that accounting is part of political economy. The material nature of bookkeeping was manifested in the fact that a certain account corresponded to each type of material values, hence the classification of accounts according to the type of values. All accounts were divided according to real and rational values. Real accounts were divided into personal accounts and accounts of material assets, and accounts of material assets - into accounts of fixed and working capital. Working capital accounts included capital accounts and all result accounts. Thus, in France in the 19th century, the accounting theory of the economic direction was created, but with all the successes of accounting thought and the spread of double entry, simple accounting was still widely represented. Accountants tried to create an accounting code that was supposed to contain the legal definition of the profession and the obligations of the parties. Critical works by French authors on simple and double bookkeeping contributed to the development of accounting thought. At the beginning of the twentieth century, French accountants were influenced by the legal direction, but this did not last long and was associated with the recognition of control as the main function of accounting. A. Lefebvre, L. Batardon, G. Faure, A. Beaumont, R. Lefort, P. Garnier and others were the spokesmen for this trend.
The largest representative of the legal direction was P. Garnier, who began the enumeration of theoretical principles with the concept of an accounting fact; he divided all the facts into: 1) legal - supply contracts, purchase and sale, contracts and leases; 2) economic changes in prices, tariffs; 3) material - losses from natural disasters, theft, depreciation of fixed assets. Garnier P. developed a methodology for classifying facts in accordance with general characteristics and changing them in order to extract all the necessary information from them. Thus, Garnier tried to systematize the managerial interpretation of accounting with the views traditional for French authors. In the concept of accounting organization, he included three elements:
1) method - the choice of methodological techniques (permanent or conventional inventory, costing option);
2) system - the structure of the apparatus, document flow, form of accounting; 3) procedure - the procedure for selecting those facts that are subject to registration.
The French school in the twentieth century was influenced by American scientists who distinguished three types of value: technical, activated and structural; therefore, the cost-benefit analysis was based on these three factors.
Germany. The idea of German accounting was reduced to the disclosure of internal settlements with materially responsible persons - factors.
The German form of accounting was first described in 1774 by F. Gelwig, the form was born as a result of dividing the journal into Memorial and cash book. In the first register, in chronological order, all the facts of economic life that did not affect the cash registers were recorded.
In Germany, for many years, cameral accounting dominated, at the center of which was cash accounting, so the spread of double Italian accounting led to the addition of the well-known cash book with Memorial and, as a result, chronological records began to be kept in two registers, and account entries in the General Ledger, where summed up once a month. On the basis of the cash book and the Memorial, two recapitulations were made on the debit and credit of all accounts. After that, a combined journal was filled in, in which, according to a specific scheme, either articles were recorded with decomposition on a debit basis, or on a credit basis of individual accounts (South German version), or according to the combined article formula: accounts are different, accounts are different (North German version). The results of turnovers on synthetic accounts were recorded in the General Ledger.
Thus, in the German form of accounting, its own special features of accounting were formed, with special attention paid to the design of records, but, like for accountants in many European countries of that time, it was typical to keep their records in the way they know how.
Anglo-American School. English accountants in their writings developed the issues of depreciation, forms of accounting, didactics and organization of accounting in agriculture and industry. For the first time with the concept of depreciation of fixed assets, we meet with D. Mellis, in practice two approaches were widespread:
1) depreciation is a direct expense of real estate;
2) depreciation is a technique that allows you to constantly keep the main capital at the same level.
Accounting forms were developed by D. Weddington, R. Dafforne, E.T. Jones.
English accountants believed that the practice of accounting to ensure transparency should include a tabular form of unified reporting and the same forms of primary documents. In addition, accountants had to exchange experiences, i.e. qualified accountants must disseminate advanced knowledge and educate those involved in business processes, warning them against abuse. The authors who wrote about accounting in the 19th century did not think about developing and proposing a new effective method, but were busy describing the expedient achievements of practice. In England, personification in accounting was originally widespread. In the development of accounting, it went through three stages:
1) the personification of the account - it was assumed that the accounts of goods, cash, fixed assets are, as it were, living people;
2) the assumption that each account is a decoding of the owner's capital; 3) interpretation of each account as a screen with which to observe the behavior of employees - agents of the enterprise; this aspect is called personalization.
Personification caused criticism from accountants, who considered it a disadvantage that a current account can be interpreted either as a cash account or as a settlement account. The first theorists of accounting in England were D.V. Fulton, V.F. Foster, L.R. Dixie, E.G. Folsom and others.
The first ideologist and theorist of audit was Dixie, who clearly defined audit as the work associated with confirming the correctness and objectivity of the balance sheet. Dixie saw the objectives of the audit in identifying:
Forgery;
random errors;
Weaknesses in the organization of accounting.
The check began with the cash desk, the balance sheet analysis was considered from the point of view of various stakeholders. The ideas of the Dixie audit were developed by A.T. Watson, R. Goddard, E. Michaud and others.
Thus, in the 19th century in England, accounting was understood as the study of the psychology of people working in accounting and in an enterprise, and it was argued that everything should have practical meaning, there are no ideas outside of practice.
The largest accounting theorist of the 20th century in the United States was C.E. Sprug, he showed the importance and usefulness of an abstract presentation of accounting ideas. In America, two theoretical schools of accounting have emerged: the institutionalist and the personalist. Differences in the presentation of theoretical issues between the supporters of the two schools were on twelve points:
1) interpretation of the capital account;
3) purpose of the enterprise;
5) characteristics of the account of losses and profits;
6) balance equation;
7) the role of dividends;
8) profitability of the enterprise;
9) evaluation;
10) for whom the balance is intended;
11) frequency of balance;
12) depreciation.
The personalistic approach was defended by V.E. Paton. In the 1920s, US law required shares to be valued at par. This provision was criticized, and Paton proposed that the deviation from the nominal value of shares be reflected in special accounts. Paton demanded a revaluation of each type of value at current market prices. This approach was supported by R. Stevenson, but L. Middleditch and R. Kester proceeded from the fact that the accounts should retain the cost estimate, and the balance could be adjusted to market prices. Within the personalistic school, a group of scientists was formed headed by G. Swiney, they were influenced by the ideas of Schmalenbach, took into account the experience of European inflation and called their concept stabilized accounting. The great merit of American accounting should be recognized as the development of professional ethics. For the first time this requirement was put forward by Montgomery, and D.L. Carrie. The scientific interpretation of accounting has led many American researchers to believe that accounting data reflect the interests of persons involved in business processes, and accounting information reveals the psychology of agents and correspondents of enterprises. Thus, the desire to turn accounting into a management tool led accountants in English-speaking countries to use psychology. Thanks to the psychological interpretation, the standardization of accounting work was ensured, it turned into a set of predetermined options, and this facilitated the use of computers. Further development of the direction led to the emergence of management accounting. Both managerial and accounting have their own independent information bases: the first allows oral communications and uses calculation methods, the second only documents and their registrations. In management accounting, accuracy is sacrificed for efficiency.
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