Single Entry.— The simplest andpurest form of single entry bookkeeping has for its object the keeping of accounts with persons only; it shows how much is due the proprietor from his customers and how much he owes his creditors. The books kept are a journal (or daybook) and a ledger. The journal may have only one money column; if it has two columns, the left hand one is used for partial amounts and the right hand one for totals. If goods are sold on account, an entry is made in the journal debiting the customer but no opposite entry is made. When the customer pays his bill, an entry is made crediting his account, but no account is debited. Likewise, when goods are bought on credit, an entry is made crediting the seller, and when he is paid his account is debited. It is necessary to write Dr. or Cr. after each entry in order to show to which side of the corresponding ledger account the amount should be posted. If no debit or credit to a personal account is involved in a transaction, no entry is made. The ledger contains only ac counts with customers, showing the amounts due from them; and accounts with creditors, showing the amounts owed to them ; and usually the proprietor's accounts, showing his investment and withdrawals. No property or nominal accounts are kept; therefore, no trial balance can be taken. It has been said that in single entry only one entry is made for any transaction, while in double entry two entries are made for every transaction. It would be more accurate to say that single entry records only one of the two elements or occurrences of a transaction, while double entry records both of them.
Sometimes a record of all the transactions of the business is kept in diary form and only those entries involving accounts with persons are posted to the ledger. Some sets of single entry books include a cashbook Then it be gins to encroach upon double entry because both sides of every cash transaction are record ed. But only those entries in the cashbook which involve personal accounts are posted to the ledger. Other sets of single entry books in clude sales and purchase books as well as a cash book and keep in the ledger some property accounts and such accounts as sales, purchases, expenses, etc., thus more closely approaching the double entry system. Such records may truly be called °incomplete double . i i From the single entry ledger s impossible to construct a balance sheet as that statement is peculiar to double entry. But a statement of assets and liabilities can be made. The ledger furnishes the amount of the accounts receivable and accounts payable; the cash book, if one be kept, shows the amount of cash on hand or in the bank; all other information must be found outside the books.
Since the single entry ledger contains no nominal accounts, the only way to ascertain the profit or loss is to find the difference be tween the net worth as determined by the state ment of assets and liabilities at the end of the period and that at the beginning of the period, taking into account also all withdrawals or ad ditions of capital which may have taken place during the period. Since the profit or loss
cannot be found independently, there is no check on the correctness of the amount.
The disadvantage of single entry is its in completeness and lack of check on the accu racy of the entries, and on the truth of the statement of assets and liabilities and profit and loss; and lack of sources of profit and loss and of cost or other statistical data. However, single entry suffices for professional men, trus tees, institutions and small retail firms inter ested principally in cash receipts and payments and personal accounts and not involved in transactions which might produce profit or loss from many various causes.
Historical.— The origin of bookkeeping is obscure and difficult to determine. There ex ist Babylonian records as early as 2600 B.c. written on small slabs of clay with a stylus; and Egyptian records written on papyrus and pictures of scribes writing down the quantities of grain brought into and removed from the government storehouses. But these are mere narratives. Money values were not recorded because money had not been invented. Neither could the effect of transactions upon the busi ness nor the financial relations of one business to another have been expressed. The earliest example of a record kept in three columns, date, explanation and amount, is in the Advo cates' Library at Edinburgh and dated 1697. But double entry was in use long before that.
About 1494 a book was published in Venice, entitled about Arithmetic, Geome try and Proportion,' and contained an exposi tion of the principles of double entry. The authorship of this book has been variously as cribed to Luca Paciolo, Luca dal Borgo, de Bergo and others, all Tuscan friars. The sg tem had probably been in use for about years at that time. The first English book was published in 1543 in London by John Gough or Hugh Oldcastle. All the evidence shows that the development of the double entry system accompanied the rise in trade of the Italian merchants of Genoa., Florence and Venice dur ing the 14th and 15th centuries. On this ac count it is sometimes called the Italian method.
Modern Improvements and Mechanical Although the essential principles of bookkeeping have not changed since the theory was first developed, the practice of the art has been modified and technical methods devised with remarkable rapidity during the past few years with a view to reducing the routine drudgery of the clerical work and increasing the speed with which the records are made and the results obtained. The method of trans ferring the chronological record to the ledger was one of the first modifications made. Not only has the descriptive, untechnical memorial or daybook almost entirely disappeared, but the journal, from which each entry is posted to the ledger, is now generally used only for un classified items and the adjusting and closing entries.