Triple-entry Bookkeeping: A Critique

Abstract This paper reviews Ijiri's proposals for triple-entry bookkeeping systems. The first part summarises the essential elements of Ijiri's proposals. Ijiri examines two different versions of triple-entry bookkeeping—temporal and differential; however, Ijiri himself concludes that temporal triple-entry bookkeeping is unsatisfactory and so this paper concentrates almost exclusively on differential triple-entry bookkeeping. Ijiri's theoretical approach is then examined, with the conclusion that it is methodologically unsound. There are two problems here. Ijiri does not define the objectives of his proposed system ex ante, and his integrity criterion is an arbitrary and imperfect one. Differential triple-entry bookkeeping is then analysed in detail and it is concluded that it may be imperfect in terms of Ijiri's own logical criteria. Potential usefulness is also examined, and it is concluded that this is at best problematic.