Accounting: Past, Present,...but Future?

The first records of accounting were taxes recorded on clay tablets in Egypt and Mesopotamia.  As the economy adopted a monetary system years later, accounting was also used to record transactions.  One of the most significant events in the history of accounting is the development of the double-entry method in 1458 which consists of recording transactions with both a debit and credit value.

Evolution of Accountants

An Italian mathematician named Luca Pacioli published this idea using the Gutenberg press in 1494, and because his twenty-seven page lecture on double-entry bookkeeping was accessible to many, Pacioli’s book was a frequent reference for accounting for several hundred years.

The industrial revolution created a greater need for more efficient and accurate bookkeeping.  As companies grew and became more competitive, they needed to communicate who were the shareholders in the corporation.  During the information age, many accounting organizations were created to create general principles that would establish constituency across the board regarding how values were to be reported on financial statements.

And the digital age would change it even more.  The rapid progress of technology has enabled the invention of computerized accounting systems that contain the transactions of a business—they even comply with the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) required by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.  So if the computers can run the numbers, then what’s our job?  While accounting is clearly useful and necessary, do we still need the accountants? 

Image Credit: Evolution of Accountants (via i Edu Note)