<P> By the time of Emperor Augustus (63 BC - AD 14), the Roman government had access to detailed financial information as evidenced by the Res Gestae Divi Augusti (Latin: "The Deeds of the Divine Augustus"). The inscription was an account to the Roman people of the Emperor Augustus' stewardship, and listed and quantified his public expenditure, including distributions to the people, grants of land or money to army veterans, subsidies to the aerarium (treasury), building of temples, religious offerings, and expenditures on theatrical shows and gladiatorial games, covering a period of about forty years . The scope of the accounting information at the emperor's disposal suggests that its purpose encompassed planning and decision - making . </P> <P> The Roman historians Suetonius and Cassius Dio record that in 23 BC, Augustus prepared a rationarium (account) which listed public revenues, the amounts of cash in the aerarium (treasury), in the provincial fisci (tax officials), and in the hands of the publicani (public contractors); and that it included the names of the freedmen and slaves from whom a detailed account could be obtained . The closeness of this information to the executive authority of the emperor is attested by Tacitus' statement that it was written out by Augustus himself . </P> <P> Records of cash, commodities, and transactions were kept scrupulously by military personnel of the Roman army . An account of small cash sums received over a few days at the fort of Vindolanda circa AD 110 shows that the fort could compute revenues in cash on a daily basis, perhaps from sales of surplus supplies or goods manufactured in the camp, items dispensed to slaves such as cervesa (beer) and clavi caligares (nails for boots), as well as commodities bought by individual soldiers . The basic needs of the fort were met by a mixture of direct production, purchase and requisition; in one letter, a request for money to buy 5,000 modii (measures) of braces (a cereal used in brewing) shows that the fort bought provisions for a considerable number of people . </P> <P> The Heroninos Archive is the name given to a huge collection of papyrus documents, mostly letters, but also including a fair number of accounts, which come from Roman Egypt in 3rd century AD . The bulk of the documents relate to the running of a large, private estate is named after Heroninos because he was phrontistes (Koine Greek: manager) of the estate which had a complex and standardised system of accounting which was followed by all its local farm managers . Each administrator on each sub-division of the estate drew up his own little accounts, for the day - to - day running of the estate, payment of the workforce, production of crops, the sale of produce, the use of animals, and general expenditure on the staff . This information was then summarized as pieces of papyrus scroll into one big yearly account for each particular sub-division of the estate . Entries were arranged by sector, with cash expenses and gains extrapolated from all the different sectors . Accounts of this kind gave the owner the opportunity to take better economic decisions because the information was purposefully selected and arranged . </P>

History of an accounting and background to accounting