History of Bookkeeping
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This is a concise history of bookkeeping, just in case you are prone to falling asleep at the mere thought of history lesson. Bookkeeping is "the practice or profession of a person recording accounts and transactions of a business."
This sounds rather dry, but the practice of bookkeeping is used by many people in many different organisations every day. A business will use bookkeeping, organizations that are non-profit use bookkeeping, for example churches, schools and clubs all need bookkeeping to keep their finances in order.
The history of bookkeeping starts back sometime around 4000 B. C. At that time the established way of keeping track of things was normally done with tokens instead of written forms. (It has been hypothesized that land ownership, was tracked by bookkeeping all the way back in 8000 B. C.)
Clay tablets have been unearthed that show contracts being used in Assyria, and others have been found in Asia during archaeological digs. The tablets have been carbon tested and are shown to date back to circa 4000 B. C. The tablets show some form of ancient bookkeeping, recording contracts, containing many different important transactions such as marriage dowries, wills, lending and borrowing - even lawsuits.
Not until 1494 did bookkeeping begin to develop into the more detailed system we know today. It was then that Luca Pacioli wrote the first book that dealt with bookkeeping. In the pages of his book Pacioli went over a very detailed way that accounting is used, and that process is still in use today.
That book made Pacioli known as the father of bookkeeping. But before he was around Benedetto Corugli wrote a book. It showed a process that is known as double entry, a fundamental element of a successful bookkeeping process. Double entry bookkeeping records transactions into two areas, and has more inbuilt control than single entry bookkeeping, and hence more likely to be accurate.
Bookkeeping has continued to grow through the years, now very few locations will even use the paper ledgers of the past. Switching instead to computerised bookkeeping systems. There are many out there, and some will deal with specialized bookkeeping for specific areas of industry specialism.
These computer programs are not without their flaws though. Human failings cannot prevent the misposting of transactions, and therefore the role of bookkeeper is as important as ever.
Bookkeepers still need to check and ensure that the information has been entered correctly. Though many of the computer programs for bookkeeping have set in place controls and checks, you just can’t beat the human touch.
Things have come a long way since the earliest hitory of bookkeeping and the days of tokens being used to keep track of things. Computers and information technologies have made bookkeeping more technically challenging, and as organisations grow in size the advanced systems that are required necessitate specialized training.
An appreciation of the history of bookkeeping can give reassurance that the underlying skills are fundamentally unchanged since the middle ages, but there are extra learning requirements to cope with today’s advanced systems.
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More about bookkeeping:
Small Business Bookkeeping Overview.
Small Business Finance Tips home page.