Proměny městského účetnictví mezi 18. a 19. stoletím

Abstract

Changes in Urban Accounting between the 18th and 19th Centuries. The aim of the article is to explain the transformation of accounting with reference to two Moravian cities, Olomouc and Uničov, between the mid-18th and 19th centuries. The article summarizes the concept of cameralism, the practical reasons for accounting reforms at the central level of the monarchy, and the beginnings of cameral accounting in the second half of the 18th century. The first legislation on the introduction of cameral accounting in municipal government dates from 1768; however, even after that year and indeed until 1922, individual cities continued to have a major influence on the specific form of accounting they used. Although sources from the end of the 18th and the first half of the 19th century are preserved only fragmentally, the main change in Olomouc and Uničov, as well as in towns in the Czech borderland studied by Petr Cais, happened around 1850, when the cities started accepting printed forms that remained in use for almost a century. In 1922, binding rules for accounting and cash desk service were published, but this had little effect on the accounting records of Olomouc and Uničov. Their journals and main accounting books maintained approximately the same form and structure regardless of this turning point. Neither did they reflect the various changes in the political system of the Czech state, up until the end of World War II. From this point of view, the cameral accounting technique designed by Enlightenment economists can be seen as a fundamental contribution to the modernization of accounting in our territory.

Keywords

• cities
• accounting
• 18th century
• 19th century
• cameral
• czech lands