BOOKKEEPING. The application of the general principles of debit and credit. and of classification of accounts, to the details of busi ness. The object of bookkeeping is to furnish a complete and systematic record which may en able the proprietor readily to ascertain any de sired facts regarding the progress and condition of his business and his financial relations with others. Without the knowledge thus gained, business cannot safely be carried on, and suc cess or failure is often very closely related to the character of the work done at the bookkeeper's desk. In order that it may meet all the demands which are likely to be made upon it, bookkeeping must be practiced in such a way as to be intel ligible, not only to the one who performs the work, but also to others. For if a dispute arises and it becomes necessary to place the books in evidence, suspicion naturally attaches to meth ods that can be understood and explained only by the interested party. There are two systems of bookkeeping which satisfy the requirements named, and which are accepted and used by prac tically the entire commercial world. They are known respectively as single-entry bookkeeping and donble-entry bookkeeping.
Business records of sonic form or other were doubtless employed in the earliest times in the history of trade and credit. Of the early forms of bookkeeping. however, practically nothing is known. From the works of Leonardo of Pisa it appears certain that the merchants of Italy, France, and Spain practiced systematic book keeping for some time prior to the Thirteenth Century. It is. however, to the Italian traders of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth centuries, the enterprising merchants of Genoa. Florence, and Venice, that we owe the system of bookkeep ing which takes the lead at the present time. In the year 1495 Luca Pacioli, or Luca di Burgo, a Tuscan friar, published a work which contained a treatise upon double-entry bookkeep ing. This is the first systematic treatment of the subject of which we have any record. From Italy the system spread to the Netherlands, thence to England. and from there to all parts of the world. And it is worthy of remark that the more complete system of double entry was per fected and brought into general use considerably before the system of single entry.