The Committee on Accounting History of the American Account-ing Association once suggested the possibility of comparative his-torical research among different countries.12 In Japan, however, such a comparison was made a century ago. Waoo Chomen Kufabe (Japanese & Western Bookkeeping Compared), 1878, by Kiyoshi Fujii (1851-?), a teacher of Kobe Shogya Koshujo (Kobe Commercial School) is an early example. The author was a pupil of Fukuzawa and once studied bookkeeping at the Osaka Mint. This book consists of two volumes and illustrates three sets of books in two ways, (1) Western bookkeeping of ruled books with horizontal decimal notation of Japanese figures, and (2) Japanese bookkeeping of unruled books and vertical traditional notation of Japanese figures. The first set of books consists of three slips, a Journal and a ledger as follows:
Payment slip
Transfer slip Day Book General Ledger Daily Balance Sheet
Receipt slip
The Day Book is a cash journal (with three columns on each side; cash, transfer and total), evidently taken from Shand’s Bank Bookkeeping together with slips and a ledger. The author introduced the transfer slip for the first time in Japan. This is the origin of the form which was later called “Shand’s Bookkeeping” and spread all over the country before World War II.
Using the unruled books of Japanese bookkeeping the author suggested that entries in the day book (cash journal) be made in black for cash and in red for transfer; and all entries in general ledger be marked with a character signifying either receipt or pay-ment. This was certainly an innovation from the traditional book-keeping method of Japan, but it was too complicated to be of practical use. The comparison presented in Waoo Chomen Kurabe brought out clearly the superiority of the column-ruled books and decimal notation to the unruled books and traditional notation of Japan.
Another comparison was made in Bokigaku Seiri (Theory of Sci-ence of Bookkeeping), 1879, by Shin-ichi Kure (1848-?). The au-thor studied English from Japanese teachers and an American, Carroll, by name, and operated a private school himself. He com-piled this book based on the first part of William Inglis’s Book-keep-ing by Single & Double Entry. This is the second bookkeeping text to have adopted Arabic figures in Japan. The author showed and explained two English forms of balance sheets, horizontal notation of Arabic figures and vertical notation of Japanese figures for comparison. He also illustrated profit calculations charging cost of furniture to expenses when incurred. Here he has pointed out for the first time in Japan the important differences of Western book-keeping from our own.