ABSTRACT
DEVELOPMENT OF ACCOUNTING In its simplest form, accounting recorded cash receipts and payments and measured the resulting balance at the end. This might be for a specific business venture or for a definite period of time. As some businesses grew larger and more complex, so did the number and range of their transactions and they began to need more elaborate records. In order to record revenues and expenses, assets and liabilities, a system of ‘double-entry’ bookkeeping evolved in the fifteenth century. This system was not only able to classify transactions, but was also self-checking. Goethe called it ‘the finest invention of the human mind’; and it remains the foundation of modem accounting.
