"Accounting, Business and Financial History" is a major recent journal, publishing interdisciplinary research in the accounting, business and financial history fields. "ABFH" is concerned with how organizational structures, management, accounting data and economic conditions influence businesses and thus the overall performance of the economy. This special issue of the journal "ABFH" celebrates the 500th anniversary of the publication of Luca Pacioli's "Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proporttioni et Proportionalita", which contained the first detailed description of the operation of a system of double entry bookkeeping. The articles in this special issue examine the historical development and recording of double entry bookkeeping.