<P> Accounting as it developed in Renaissance Europe also had moral and religious connotations, recalling the judgment of souls and the audit of sin . </P> <P> The development of joint - stock companies (especially from about 1600) built wider audiences for accounting information, as investors without firsthand knowledge of their operations relied on accounts to provide the requisite information . This development resulted in a split of accounting systems for internal (i.e. management accounting) and external (i.e. financial accounting) purposes, and subsequently also in accounting and disclosure regulations and a growing need for independent attestation of external accounts by auditors . </P> <P> Modern Accounting is a product of centuries of thought, custom, habit, action and convention . Two concepts have formed the current state of the accountancy profession . Firstly, the development of the double book - keeping system in the fourteenth and fifteenth century and secondly, accountancy professionalization which was created in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries . The modern profession of the chartered accountant originated in Scotland in the nineteenth century . During this time, accountants often belonged to the same associations as solicitors, and the latter solicitors sometimes offered accounting services to their clients . Early modern accounting had similarities to today's forensic accounting: </P> <Dl> <Dd> "Like forensic accountants today, accountants then incorporated the duties of expert financial witnesses into their general services rendered . An 1824 circular announcing the accounting practice of one James McClelland of Glasgow promises he will make "statements for laying before arbiters, courts or council ." </Dd> </Dl>

Who is widely recognized as the first forensic accountant