Accounting for Alcohol – part 7, “Accounting for vodka in Russia”

This is a summary of the next chapter in our Accounting for Alcohol book, which was written by Viatcheslav Sokolov, Svetlana Karelskaia and Ekaterina Zuga. As the chapter (and post) title suggests, this chapter details accounting practices around vodka in Russia. For me personally, this was a very interesting chapter as I knew very little about accounting in Russia in general.

The chapter details accounting records around vodka dating from the early 1600s. In the 16th century, Russia gradually introduced a state monopoly over the production and distribution of alcoholic beverages. At this time, alcohol could be sold only in special drinking establishments owned by the state, known as kabaks. Profit generated by kabaks was captured made in kabak books, a special type of accounting register, and this profit was reported to the State. In 1649, a standardised system of accounting for alcohol was introduced State wide, and this remained in place until 1832.

In 1817, excise taxes were imposed on private alcohol manufacturers. The tax was based on actual the total output permitted by the producer. Producers recorded different types of beverages in a special book, where they registered the volume of product output, its bottling and delivery. Thes books were maintained using the double entry system. Later in 1895, the State for the first time issued a statute which described vodka, and effectively monopolised its production through strict controls on private producers. This implied Provincial Excise Offices played a key role in the accounting process. They kept ledgers to track cash flows, assets and settlements with the manufacturers, distributors and financial institutions relating to production and distribution of alcoholic beverages.