Purpose and features 
However, only two Spanish journals are now dedicated entirely to accounting, and, while some Spanish accounting history researchers do publish part of their work in English language journals, publication continues to be a difficult proposition for most. Thus, many researchers can hope only to present their work as papers at Conferences and Congresses, something that constitutes a great loss for their fellow historians, since a good part of the research conducted remains unknown or unpublished.
This is particularly regrettable in the current ´publish or perish´ university environment, where the careers of university professors depend, to a great extent, on the successful publication of research in accredited journals of recognized academic prestige.
AECA’s Accounting History Commission (Comisión de Historia de la Contabilidad) saw the need for a Spanish journal dedicated to the history of accounting, one that could provide the space to publish at least a good portion of the best work produced. Its aim is to provide Spanish university researchers with an enduring publication outlet for their work in the field, thus enabling them to further their academic careers while continuing to pursue their preferred subjects of research.
Given the relatively small number of academics in the discipline, a conventional print format journal of accounting history hardly seems feasible. There are only four journals dedicated to this subject worldwide: the North American Accounting Historians Journal, the British Accounting, Business and Financial History, the Australian Accounting History and the Italian Contabilità e Cultura Aziendale. Rivista della Società Italiana di Storia della Ragioneria. All have low circulation --and high overheads due to fixed printing costs.
This, combined with the fact that, in Spain, a print format journal dedicated to the history of accounting could aspire to less than one third the circulation of those journals, convinced us that the most viable route is an electronic edition. This means that the new accounting history journal proposed here will be the only exclusively electronic or e-journal, (Accounting, Business and Financial History does offer both print and e-formats, this latter at a slightly lower subscription price).
Since our ultimate goals are to: 1. Disseminate and consolidate the knowledge provided by new research into accounting history; and 2. Create a self-owned, dedicated channel that enables university professors pursuing historical-accounting research to further their academic careers, the journal will be free of charge, with no subscription fee. In addition to having its own domain: www.decomputis.org, the journal will be available on AECA’s web page under either the AECA Journals or Accounting History Commission section.
The essential ingredient for achieving these goals is quality. From the first issue onward, the journal must aspire to meet the most ambitious, most rigorous academic publishing standards observed in Spain and the world in general, and so earn the recognition of scientific academic publications at home and abroad. Only after achieving this can we proceed, in the mid term, to request inclusion in the data bases of periodical publications such as the Philadelphia Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), its Journal of Citation Reports, Econlit and others.
Therefore, the journal´s concept and design must meet the following minimum requirements, among others:
1. Establish a rigorous, formal, systematic anonymous peer-review system of articles submitted for publication, and periodically publish the roster of reviewers and percentage of articles approved out of the total submitted. This guarantees the quality of the articles and ensures the integrity of all citation data.
2. Meet publication deadlines for all issues. This is a pre-requisite for journals to be included in the ISI data base. Regular publication of issues is proof of the existence of a large enough bank of accepted articles. To appropriately measure the deadline compliance of a magazine, the evaluator requires at least the last three issues.
3. Meet international publishing standards: Journal title must duly inform of content; titles and the summaries of articles published must adequately describe article content; include key words, as well as complete bibliographical citations and accurate information on author, including address.
4. For all articles not published in English: include English translation of title, summary, key words and information about the author.
5. Include researchers of recognized prestige from Spain and elsewhere on the journal’s Editorial Board, to enhance reputation.
6. Include articles by renowned Spanish and international researchers.
7. Positive consideration is given when articles are published in English, in addition to journal´s national language.
8. Electronic journals are subject to the same evaluation rules and are increasingly being included in international data bases. The Institute for Scientific Information included the first electronic journal in its ISI data base in September 1994.
Maximum priority will be assigned to meeting the web page publication deadlines of the two issues planned per year.
The title of the journal now duly informs of the discipline to which it is devoted. Care will be taken to ensure that article titles provide adequate content information. All will be preceded by a summary, key words and a biographical note on the author including his/her address. All bibliographical references will be checked to ensure citation integrity.
To encourage international readership, the journal´s name will be followed by two subtitles, in Spanish and English: De Computis. Revista Española de Historia de la Contabilidad (Spanish Journal of Accounting History). All summaries, key words and author biographical notes will be in both Spanish and English.
In addition to Spanish languages, the journal will publish articles written in other widely-used languages, such as English, French, German, Italian and Portuguese, and will seek contributions from prestigious accounting history authors willing to submit to the peer-review procedure. Since three out of the four existing journals dedicated to accounting history publish only in English, the emergence of a new journal devoted to the publication of Spanish papers, but also open to papers originally written in other languages, will help enrich the bibliography of our discipline and further disseminate it in Latin American countries.
Apart from the Doctrinal articles section, the journal may also choose to publish other sections such as News, Documentation, Bibliographical Comments, Doctoral Dissertations, News about Archives and Debates, as it deems appropriate.