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Balance Chart
12017-03-19T13:40:24-07:00Daniel Platt and Rachel Knecht3ebb098c099a4564606054ddd3beb814ce8f359d118622James Arlington Bennett, The American System of Bookkeeping (1836)plain2017-09-03T16:41:53-07:00Daniel Platt and Rachel Knecht3ebb098c099a4564606054ddd3beb814ce8f359d
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12017-07-12T08:39:32-07:00Bookkeeping1version 1plain2017-07-12T08:39:32-07:00In antebellum decades, most business was conducted by individuals or small firms run by people with personal connections. These businesses tended to rely on account books that used single- or, increasingly, double-entry bookkeeping methods. These books of tables kept track of business’s income and expenditures, each of which were tallied up at the bottom of every page. Double-entry bookkeeping was designed to create balance in the account books, so that every dollar spent was also a dollar earned in some kind of asset. Some accountants got a little more creative; James Bennett summarized a few different accounts simultaneously in his “Balance Charts” diagram, something that long tables were not well-equipped to do. But many firms were content to leave this information within the accountant's books.
