Business Accounting at Fengshengtai in Late Imperial China: Is There New Evidence of Double-Entry Bookkeeping?

Abstract

This article analyzes the accounting treatment of sales and purchasing at the Fengshengtai Company (丰盛泰号), a salt trader from Shanxi Province. We find evidence of “dualled entry” bookkeeping in that all transactions were recorded twice. Crucially, each set of dualled entries was recorded in two distinct accounts. For example, cash transactions were recorded in a “cash flowing account” as well as a specialized flowing account. We thus argue that, in light of clues from other records, a system of indigenous Chinese double-entry bookkeeping may well have been developed at Fengshengtai and other Shanxi merchants. Our study is based on Fengshengtai's surviving account books, a collection of primary sources spanning 1854 to 1881, that have recently become available to scholars.