Duplicate Accounting Records: Historical Notes

According to some of the earliest printed expositions of bookkeeping and accounts, a businessman might keep two ledgers pertaining to the same set of transactions. The second ledger could be an exact copy of the original ledger, to be available if the latter were lost or destroyed. Or, one of the ledgers could be a distorted version of the original, designed to deceive and defraud. Other uses of duplicate ledgers are also considered in this article.