The Accounting Historians Journal Vol. 17, No. 2 December 1990
Marc Nikitin TOURS, FRANCE SETTING UP AN INDUSTRIAL ACCOUNTING
SYSTEM AT SAINT-GOBAIN (1820 -1880) Abstract: In 1820, the
Manufacture Royale des Glaces, founded in 1665 and also named
Compagnie de Saint-Gobain, opted for double entry bookkeeping
and cost accounting. At that time, both economic (indus-trial
revolution) and juridical (abolition of the privileges and emer-
gence of competition) events explain that change of accounting
meth-ods. From 1820 to 1880, the accounting system was
progressively im-proved; most of today's cost accounting
problems were discussed by the Board of Directors and in 1880
the accounting system was already very similar to today's full
cost method. Industrial Accounting: a New Information System.
Modern ac-counting was popularized in 1494 when Luca Pacioli
published The Suma; it was such an outstanding work that most
French accounting historians suppose there has been no prominent
theo-retical discovery since that time.