Account Books and the Use of Accounting in the Monastery of Arouca, 1786-1825

The economy and accounting sophistication: An overview of Transylvania

“…Reviewing the archive of the Sibiu Greek merchants’ company, in a compilation which presents in chronological order the commercial records of several trading houses in the period 1473–1868, we did not come across references to DEB, but to the ‘charge and discharge’ accounting system, or memorial bookkeeping by another designation (Horomnea, 2008; Rusu and Cuciureanu, 1981). This is certified by other authors for European contexts in the same period, until the beginning of the nineteenth century (Lemarchand, 1994; Oliveira and De Fatima Brandao, 2012; Toms, 2010). In light of the above, we are fairly cautious about Rusu and Cuciureanu’s (1981) findings for this stage, which are more plausible for our next historical stage, or we can accept the coexistence of the charge and discharge accounting system with an incipient form of DEB, the Italian method.…”

“…Finally, as Demetrescu et al (1979: 385) argue, there are forms of accounting evidence for the places of worship, such as inventory and accounting notes from monasteries, in line with the findings of Oliveira and De Fatima Brandao (2012).…”

“…Resuming the discussion about the archive of the Greek merchants of Sibiu, the first records that drew our attention date back to the years 1694–1697 (Direcția Generală a Arhivelor Statului (DGAS), 1966: vol. 1, 19–48) and suggest inflows and outflows of money and goods, the rules of the charge and discharge system (Bryer, 2005; Oliveira and De Fatima Brandao, 2012): he cashed in … he borrowed … he makes notes in the roll regarding the goods sold … the capital also includes his share of the inheritance … (DGAS, 1966: vol. 1)…”