Encyclopædia Britannica, First Edition/Account

ACCOUNT, or Accompt, in a general sense, a computation or reckoning of any thing by numbers. Collectively, it is used to express the books which merchants, traders, bankers, &c. use for recording their transactions in business. See Book-keeping.

Account in company, is an account betwixt partners relating to the transactions of their joint concern. See Book-keeping.

Account of sales, is account given by one merchant to another, or by a factor to his principal, of the disposal, charges, commission, and nett proceeds of certain merchandises sent for the proper or company account of him that consigned them to such factor or vender. See Book-keeping.

Account current,—of goods. See Book-keeping.

Account in bank, a fund which it is common for merchants or others to furnish themselves with in the cash of a bank, to be in readiness for the payment of bills of exchange, purchases, &c.

Auditing an Account, is the examining and passing an account by an officer appointed for the purpose. See Auditor.

Chamber of Accounts, in the French polity, is the sovereign court of great antiquity, which takes cognizance of, and registers the accounts of the king's revenue. It is nearly the same with the English Court of Exchequer; which see.

Account in the remembrancer's office, in the exchequer, is the state of any branch of the king's revenue; as the account of the mint, of the wardrobe, of the army, navy, &c.

Account, in law, the action that lies against a person who is accountable by office to another, but refuses to render the account.

Account, is also taken sometimes, in a particular sense, for the computation of time; as we say, The Julian account, the Gregorian account, &c. in which sense it is equivalent to style.

Account is also used in sundry mercantile forms of expression for advantage, hazard, loss, &c.