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Profit & Loss
· History📜 History & Discovery
Phoenician merchants (~1200 BCE) were among the first to systematically calculate trade profit. The Indian Arthashastra (300 BCE) by Chanakya gave rules for fair pricing and detecting adulteration. Luca Pacioli's Summa de Arithmetica (1494) introduced double-entry bookkeeping — the foundation of modern profit-and-loss accounting.
⚡ 2026 Update
The classic dishonest-trader trick — using a 900 g weight while charging for 1 kg — gives a clean 100/900 = 11.1% gain even before any markup. Combined with successive discounts (where 30% + 20% is only 44%, never 50%), these are the two highest-frequency Bank PO patterns.