The Origins and Developments of French Costing Systems (As Reflected in Published Literature)

Abstract

This paper reviews the evolution of French cost accounting from the mid-1500's to the present. As might be expected, the development of costing techniques accelerated in the late nineteenth century. Modern French cost accounting probably began with Maurice Lucas' book, Le Prix de Revient, and the publications of a special government commission in 1928. The commission recommended detailed costing procedures which are relevant today and are reflected in the requirements of the latest French uniform chart of accounts. The chart provides for the incorporation of imputed costs through a system of contra accounts. Today's cost and management accounting concepts and practices in France seem quite comparable to those in other industrialized countries.

The military origins of the French management accounting model: a return to the mechanisms of accounting change

“…Second, when the French Government adopted an accounting chart in 1947, in accordance with its interventionist economic policy, the homogeneous sections method became a part of this chart, under the name of Comptabilité analytique (Holzer & Rogers, 1990;Fortin, 1991;Lebas, 1994). Even if its use was not compulsory, it remained a part of the following versions of the French Accounting Plan (1957 and1982), but disappeared in the last version (1999), as the management accounting system is now considered to be a matter of firm choice.…”

Management accounting

“…Payen (1817) related accounting systems at a carriage manufactory and a glue factory that resembled job-order and process-costing methods respectively, though he did not label them as such (Garner 1954). Payen is also credited with insights into the areas of transfer pricing, cost allocation, and the integration of cost and financial records (Garner 1954;Holzer and Rogers 1990). De Cazaux (1824), although he dealt primarily with agricultural accounting, had a better sense than Payen of input factors in costing individual transformation processes (Holzer and Rogers 1990) and was an early theorist on budgeting (Solomons 1952).…”

An examination of nineteenth-century Polish handbooks on factory accounting

“…Holzer and Rogers (1990: 57) state that modern French cost accounting probably began with Maurice Lucas’ book Le Prix de Revient (published in 1928) and a publication by a special government commission in 1928, which recommended detailed costing procedures. However, as long ago as 1820, cost accounting systems were introduced in some manufacturing enterprises (see Boyns et al, 1997).…”

“…In the following decades, other texts relating to production costs were issued in France, for example, A. Guilbault in 1865 or E. Léautey in 1881. Guilbault, for instance, “provided a detailed discussion of cost behavior (fixed versus variable) as a tool for evaluating results” (Holzer and Rogers, 1990: 61).…”