While Soll argues good accounting is a well-established key to prosperity, it is a lesson that through the ages has been frequently forgotten or ignored. Neglecting accounting has frequently imposed a cost on individuals, families and shareholders.
To Soll, for instance, the Medici Bank declined as the family’s younger generations drifted away from the rigorous accounting practices of their hard-nosed patriarch, Cosimo de’ Medici.
Soll draws a connection between accounting and accountability not just in business but also in governments and entire societies. He says the seeds of the French Revolution were sown when the Sun King, Louis XIV, decided not to replace his top accountant, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, after Colbert died in 1683.
The monarchy lost track of the nation’s finances, and by the time of Louis XIV’s passing in 1715, France was bankrupt.