Proceedings

As Bedford (1970) explains “historically the process by which accounting procedures
and thought has been transmitted from one country to another has been by the
physical transfer of accountants.”
The invention of accounting was vital to the development of the capitalistic enterprise.
In particular, double-entry bookkeeping permitted the full representation of the flow
of capital through a business.
However, in the late 1820s the numbers of corporations rapidly increased and to
operate successfully, were needed cost reports, production reports, financial
statements, and operating ratios that were more complex than simple recording
procedures could provide.
Referring again to Transylvania and trade, we can give as an example the spices, that
were a major element in the transit tradeoff oriental goods. Pakucs studied the subject
using data available from the beginning and from the fifth decade of the sixteenth
century: the customs registers as primary sources for reconstructing commercial
traffic. Using a comparative approach the author presents the amounts of different
spices that reached Transylvania through the customs of Brasov and Sibiu. Although
Brasov attracted a far larger amount of goods and number of traders than Sibiu, the
latter surpassed Brasov in the trade with saffron and other spices. Apart from pepper,
the quantities of spices brought to the Saxon towns via Wallachia are not very
impressive.(Pakucs 2002)
For centuries, the city of Brasov was (and still is) Transylvania's gateway towards the
South and East. As the renowned Harvard professor Samuel Huntington shows in his
work "The Clash of Civilizations", this is where (ideologically) Europe ends. The
fault line between the western and the eastern civilization runs indeed through Brasov,
separating Transylvania from the rest of Romania (Huntington, 2003).
Due to its geographical position, at the crossroads of Moldavia and Wallachia, Brasov
has had a fast economic growth, becoming one of the most important markets in
Transylvania. On the 14th century Brasov became one of the most economical and
political strongholds in the Southeast of Europe and on the 16th century also a cultural
center. Johannes Honterus, a great German humanist, worked most of the time in
Brasov and Deaconu Coresi printed the first Romanian book also in Brasov.
2.2.1. Books
The first trade book, who precede the Romanian accounting literature is considered to
be the paper "Izvod pentru lucrurile de obste si dechilin în scrisori de multe chipuri"
(Sibiu, Petre Bart printing house), a translation from Slavonic language made in 1792
by Dimitrie Evstatievici, who was a school director. The book contents models for
contracts, receipts, accounts, trade bills etc.
In 1837, in Brasov, is published the first double entry bookkeeping in Romanian
language, “Pravila comerciala” under the signature of the well known teacher from
Brasov Emanoil Ioan Nechifor that offers in this way a good example for other
accounting teachers and practitioners. It is worth saying that Nechifor creates his own
terms, in Romanian, which was very important and hard to do at that moment. The
~ 922 ~