Title page from 'Jones's English system of book-keeping' by Edward Thomas Jones (Bristol, 1796). [Library shelfmark: ICAS.F48]
Edward Thomas Jones was the first writer to seriously challenge the legitimacy of double-entry bookkeeping.
In Jones's method, accounts in the ledger were kept in 10 columns instead of 2. Jones argued that the double-entry method encouraged erroneous bookkeeping.
Jones's polemic against double-entry bookkeeping elicited scathing criticism, and within a year of its publication there were 5 English publications attacking Jones's claims and vindicating double-entry.
As a result of his critics, Jones's 'English system' was never widely adopted. By the 1820s Jones had discarded it himself.
In spite of his book being discredited, it was widely published and translated.