In the 1400 s a Franciscan friar, mathematician and university teacher named Luca Pacioli published a book that revolutionized business accounting. He is now credited with having invented the double-entry bookkeeping system. His book, Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalita (Everything About Arithmetic, Geometry and Proportion) contained 27 pages that established the system of accounting now called double-entry bookkeeping.

Who is the father of accounting?

The book was the first to describe how to use accounting to make decisions about a business and to measure a company’s performance. Pacioli also introduced the use of journals and ledgers to record accounting transactions tax preparation services. He warned that the accountant should not go to sleep until debits and credits were equal. He also described a cycle of financial reporting that included sales, purchases, inventory and expense accounts.

Pacioli and a colleague named Leonardo da Vinci grew up in the Republic of Florence in central Italy. The two men would have a lasting impact on the world. Leonardo would become a symbol of the Renaissance, a celebrated artist, inventor and scientist. Pacioli would write the first printed accounting book and become the father of modern accounting.

Although Pacioli’s revolutionary accounting book was published in 1494, it is believed that he learned about the double entry method of accountancy from an earlier Italian mathematician and merchant, Benedetto Cotrugli. Cotrugli’s unpublished manuscript was written about 36 years before Pacioli’s publication. But, because Pacioli’s book was the first to provide detailed information about the concept of double-entry accounting, he is recognized as its father.