preview

Luca Paciolli's Accounting System

Better Essays

The accounting system we use today started in Venice in renaissance period over 520 years ago. The trade business increased hugely during this time and all the financial recordings had to be written down to help people see how their business is doing. During that time in 1494 the first book about was published in accounting by Luca Paciolli and was called “The Collected Knowledge of Arithmetic, Geometry, Proportion and Proportionality”. He was called “The father of Accounting” and most of his described principles have been used up until this day. The same recordings of business are still being used today to keep a track of company’s profit or loss, assets, liabilities and owner’s equity for a given period. This information is very …show more content…

It can also be explained why the accountant will choose lower assets, lower profits and higher liability value. It can be explained as it is better to be able to pay off all losses and earn no profit than pay an interest on profit you haven’t earned. 3. Consistency. When the company chooses the accounting method, it should continue using it throughout. It should be the same from period to period and year to year. If the company chooses to change the method, it should be disclosed and explained why the company made such a change. This concept can also be described as logical coherence among parts or things, when the same sequence is followed from one period to another. 4. Accruals. This occurs when sales and expenses are recorded when they incur, not when they are paid out or the payment is received. In other words, the record should be made immediately no matter if the payment was received or not, paid out or not yet. Accruals can be called unpaid bills, sales on credit and other expenses over due. The conventions are as follows: 1. Separate entity. This means that accounting shows financial activity of the business as a whole, not its owners or employees. For example, Dunnes Stores is a separate entity from founder Ben Dunne. 2. Realisation. Any

Get Access