Title page from 'Idea rationaria, or the perfect accomptant', by Robert Colinson (Edinburgh, 1683). [Library shelfmark: ICAS.F16]
Robert Colinson's 'Idea rationaria, or the perfect accomptant' was the first book on bookkeeping published in Scotland.
Its publication in 1683 marked the decline of Dutch influence on bookkeeping books written in English.
For the next century, most of the best books on bookkeeping in English were published in Scotland or were written by Scottish authors.
The ascendancy of Scottish accounting was part of the more general flowering of the arts and sciences in 18th-century Scotland now referred to as the 'Scottish Enlightenment'.
Colinson had been a Scottish merchant in the Netherlands before becoming a teacher of accounting in Edinburgh.