How the Merchants of Venice Created Modern Finance, Jane Gleeson-White explores the development of double-entry accounting from its ancient roots up to its impacts on modern day society. She shows that the effects of double-entry accounting are widespread and encompass almost every aspect of life, not just those involving accounting and finance. Gleeson-White delves into topics ranging from the economic system of capitalism to environmental degradation. She even includes a brief psychology discussion comparing corporations to psychopaths. By covering all of these topics, Gleeson-White emphasizes the importance of double-entry accounting and the role that Venetian merchants played in the perfection and widespread use of this accounting system.
Although, it can be argued that the merchants of Venice created modern finance, they cannot be credited with the initial idea of double-entry accounting. The roots of double-entry accounting and accounting as a whole, can be traced back much further. Centuries before the Venetian merchants began using double-entry accounting, other businessmen were accounting for their transactions with a method that used two pages of paper, one for the person who received money or property and another for the one who gave it. Although, accounting records had been kept in some form for hundreds of years prior to the developments of the Venetian merchants, the merchants of Venice are believed to be the first to use a method that required two entries for each transaction. By requiring two entries, the Venice merchants could easily see if their books balanced. This form of record keeping also made it easier for the merchants to compute different figures such as profit, which was not a common idea at the time....
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...f items. Businesses do not have to worry about problems such as the degradation of the environment and ill effects on health so they do not include them in the cost of their products. Gleeson-White asserts that accountants need to find a way to account for these externalities soon to make businesses care about the impact that they are having on the world.
In her book Double Entry: How the Merchants of Venice Created Modern Finance, Jane Gleeson-White traces accounting from its ancient roots to the impact that it has on the world today. She includes not only the influence that Venetian merchants had on the development of double-entry accounting, but also how double-entry accounting affects the world today.
Works Cited
Gleeson-White, Jane. Double Entry: How the Merchants of Venice Created Modern Finance.
New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2011. Print.
One must understand that the integral core of a company rests in its accounting and financial areas. The departments’ need employees with an advanced knowledge and skill set to ensure the payment of supplies and accounting on the expenditure is correctly recorded. If the accounting desk presents inaccurate spending calculations on behalf of the company, it could result in spending more than what has actually been earned; this could lead to the company not only being unable to increase in revenue, but also experience loss. It is imperative that the management of the financial department is well informed and able to make decisions by taking into account the usage of every coin stated in the expenditures, and also to know the amount of revenue the company is making so that we can plan on better strategies to improve the revenues (Lu, Madu, Kuei & Winokur, 1994).
Lucas Pacioli was the first to describe a system of debts and credits in accord with journals and ledgers in 1494. These basics came together to be the concoction for what is known as accounting. Since the formal establishment of accounting in 1494, the field has expanded as the demands of the ever-changing economy became greater. The industrial revolution created the first jump in the field forcing the creation of sectors within. Since this first creation of sectors, accounting as a field has been creating more specific sects to accommodate a large variety of areas. The most common and large sects created this far include public and private accounting. Although both sects carry the same basis for their work, the variation between the two lies in their demographic, demands, and decoration.
The secular and religious views of both, Antonio and Shylock, were portrayed very bluntly. The religious opinions of both characters were that their religion was superior to infidels and also very stereotypical. In the business world, Antonio owned ships with valuable goods and was extremely generous. He always relied on their return to shore and expressed his faith in this book. On the other hand, Shylock was a greedy man and used the Bible for sources of interest to collect more money. Relating to religious views Antonio and Shylock were very parallel, but in means of business the two were reverses.
Phar-Mor was known as one of the major discount chain retailers in the late 1980’s - early 1990’s. It was founded by Mickey Monus, a gambler in nature, who with the help of senior management was “cooking the books” for years to cover up his loses. The reason why senior management agreed to do this fraud is the belief in unique ability of their leader to fix everything later on. This case is known as one of the biggest accounting frauds in the corporate history of the U.S. This paper will analyze who was affected by this fraud, the motives behind it and what systems of control failed to prevent it.
Venice and its lagoon Where is it / what is it Venice and its lagoon are in a small bay in north east of Italy on the Adriatic Venice is the capital of the Veneto region of Italy. Venice and its lagoon covers 50,000 km2.
Risk is the exposure to danger. Taking risks are necessary because risk reveals experience to an individual. Hazard has both malevolent and benevolent outcomes, which can affect the overall atmosphere in a play. The content of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice includes many scenarios of risk-taking among the relationships between characters. The Merchant of Venice consists of four different plots: the bond plot, casket plot, love plot, and ring plot; in which characters are exposed to danger. Risk serves a major responsibility as it divulges many elements of dramatic significance throughout the play. Shakespeare manifests hazard through rival arguments, lovers’ commitments, and father and child agreements.
In Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice there are two major contract’s made, a contract is any promise or set of promises made by one party to another for the breach of which the law provides a remedy. The promise or promises may be express (either written or oral) or may be implied from circumstances. The first contract in the play that I discovered is one between Portia and her father. Nerissa telling Portia :
that a man has for a woman, or vice versa. Bassanio and Portia, Jessica and
A country’s accounting system is a reflection of a number of factors that encompass both its past and present. Italy is a great reflection of this as it once stood as a leader in the accounting world, but since that point has become a bit entangled in itself.
Both Shakespeare in ‘The Merchant of Venice’ and Marlowe in ‘Dr Faustus’ use the numerous outcomes from the events of trade in their plays to metaphorically depict a variety of different circumstances. The very concept of trade is used in all its forms to stretch the controversial and political themes and morals of each play as far out as possible. From this, we learn that trade isn't just a physical form of business, but a symbolic form of both human and spiritual communication, too.
Blanchard, Jane. "Contesting Constancy in The Merchant of Venice", Renascence 61, vol 4 (2009), pp 209-220
The invention of money was a major improvement in peoples’ lives. In the past, people usually had to travel all day to find the person who is willing to exchange their goods. In addition, the goods people want to exchange did not have the standard value of measurement. This led to unequal exchanges. Furthermore, it is not convenient to carry heavy goods from one place to another for an exchange. To solve these issues, money will be the only solution. Later, people tend to develop money from cowry shells to credit cards for the convenience and to improve their society.
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Paul, B & Miller, W 1985, ‘The conceptual framework: myths and realities’, Journal of Accountancy, vol. 159, issue. 3, p. 62, ProQuest Central Database, viewed 30 April 2014
The following essay aims to analyse in depth a computerised accounting system and its aspects such as its history, what technologies is based on, and how it has developed since its beginning. Other aspects such as the current state of the system and the interactions with other systems and the future of the system will also be covered in this paper.