Radio 4 traces history of bookkeeping

Starting from Monday afternoon BBC Radio 4’s Jolyon Jenkins will present a 10-part history of double entry bookkeeping each weekday afternoon at 3.45pm.

The first episode traces the origins of accounting back 5,000 to the religious practices of ancient Mesopotamia (now Iraq), where written methods were developed to make sure that people their taxes to the temples.

“In trying to keep track of who owed what, they had to issue receipts and IOUs, and accidentally invented writing,” Jenkins claims.

Thousands of years later, Franciscan friar Luca Pacioli documented the concept of double-entry book-keeping in which transactions involve a credit and a debit, so that in a correctly computed set of books the figures will always balance.

Subsequent episodes look at accounting practices within the Greek and Roman empires before moving on to Mediaeval times and the early industrial revolutions. According to Jenkins, the cost accounting system Josiah Wedgwood used to run his business remains closely linked to modern management accounting methods.

We look forward to hearing what members think of the series, which will also be available via the BBC’s iPlayer.