During which period were businesses required to keep accounting records?

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The period from 1200 to 1493 reflects the time when businesses began facing formal expectations to keep records as trade expanded and governments and guilds sought to regulate and tax commerce. As towns grew and merchants needed to prove transactions, inventories, and debts, ledgers and accounting records became a necessary tool for accountability. This early groundwork laid the basis for later, more formalized accounting practices, but the move to require keeping records already starts in that medieval era. The other timeframes describe later developments in accounting practice rather than the initial obligation to maintain records: ancient times far predate organized business record-keeping in this sense, and the 1700–1900 or 1940–present periods reflect later evolution and standardization rather than the onset of mandatory record-keeping.