Accounting Commons^™

Chinese Double-Entry Bookkeeping Before The Nineteenth Century, Z. Jun Lin

Accounting Historians Journal

This paper examines the origination and evolution of Chinese double-entry- bookkeeping from the fifteenth century to eighteenth century. It demonstrates that Chinese merchants and bankers invented some types of double-entry spontaneously around the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Several different versions of Chinese double-entry existed and evolved throughout this period to the nineteenth century. Chinese versions of double-entry are similar to Italian-style bookkeeping, although Chinese experience was independent of the dissemination of the Western methods.