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2500 BCE
Ancient Records
Ancient civilizations such as Egypt, Rome, and Greece kept accounting records for taxing and spending on public works -
1000 BCE
Phoenician Alphabet
The Phoenicians created an accounting alphabet to prevent Egyptians from cheating them -
500 BCE
Egyptian Abacus
Egyptians invented the first bead and wire abacus for accounting uses -
423 BCE
Birth of Auditing
The auditing profession originated to double check what came in and out, reported orally -
Period: 1200 to 1493
Italian Accounting Requirements
Businesses were required to keep accounting records in many of the Italian Republics. These records were mainly to keep track of day to day transactions and credit accounts -
1494
Luca Pacioli
Luca Pacioli wrote the paper "Everything about Arithmetic, Geometry, and Proportion.", a study of the way merchants kept records of their debits and credits to make their businesses more efficient. -
Period: 1500 to
Double Entry Records
Double entry records were innovated over time. For example, the East India Company introduced capital and dividend distribution. This made them change their financial accounting and managerial accounting. -
Period: to
Industrial Revolution
During the Industrial Revolution, accounting began to grow as companies needed to stay efficient and finance. -
Period: to
Fraud Protection
During this time accounting was more important to prevent fraud and scandals. The U.S. GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) was made by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). -
Period: to
Present Day
All standards for U.S. GAAP have been located into the codification, which reveals all of the current practices and standards, as well as developing areas of accounting standards. Accounting can now be done with systems like Peachtree or Quickbooks. Due to this, there is more of a need to review the transactions rather than post them.
