Nigerian College of Accountancy Alumni

Once upon a time, Luca Pacioli wrote a math book. It was just a little survey and should have been treated like ordinary books of the time and read, then disappear into historical archives and possibly forgotten. A few brief chapters on practical mathematics made this one special. The time was 1494. Columbus had discovered America just two years before. The author was a Franciscan Monk.

The chapter on practical mathematics addressed mathematics in business. He said that a successful merchant needs three things: sufficient cash or credit, an accounting system that can tell him how he’s doing, and good bookkeeper to operate it. His accounting system consisted of journals and ledgers. It rested on the invention of double-entry bookkeeping. Debits were on the left side because that’s what “debit” meant, “the left”. The numbers on the right were named “credits”.

If everything was done right, then the bookkeeper could do a trial balance (“summa summarium”). Add up all the debits and then add up all the credits, he said. If everything had been done right, the totals should match. If not, “that would indicate a mistake in your Ledger, which mistake you will have to look for diligently with the industry and intelligence God gave you.” He wrote.

Double-entry bookkeeping was so simple and met the needs of business so well that it caught on immediately.

USEFUL ACCOUNTING  STUDIES 

1.Accounting profession in the former British West Africa

2. Bean Counters or Business Leaders?: Public Perceptions of the Accountancy Profession.

Research studies for  ICA Scotland and

3. Accountancy Vision 2020 by ICA Australia are valuable materials for accountants.

Have Questions? We can point you to learn more.....

Courtesy: Jack Le Moine, CPA, PC.  

Future of Accounting

2002 was a major watershed in the history of the profession. Major corporate scandals rocked the world. Enron’s and Worldcom’s bankruptcies was notorious because they had been reporting profits instead of losses.

How can you play the game if you don’t know the score? Worse, what if the scorekeeping is misleading? These were the significant questions that society has to face.

The bankruptcies were caused by liabilities that were not reported on the balance sheets of these companies. They were termed “off-balance sheet liabilities”. Something had to be done.

For several decades now, the primary criticism directed against rules-makers such as the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has been “standards overload”. The complaint has been that there are too many standards. Accounting rules have become too nit-picky and costly to implement. The quality of financial statements are only marginally enhanced by new rules. – Thus the criticism.

The government is going to have more of a role in promulgating accounting rules in the future. This is not a good thing. The IRS Code remains complicated, invasive, and contradictory. The glory of FASB and its predecessor bodies has been that they have been above politics – at least that kind of politics.

Another trend of recent decades has been the concentration of public accounting. When we were in college, the majority of public accounting was controlled by “the big eight” accounting firms. Mergers brought the number down to “the big six”. With Arthur Anderson’s collapse, it is now down to five. Many companies will only hire accountants who have worked for these select big firms.

The future of this trend is unclear. Elitism and the “good old boy/girl networks” will push the trend in the direction of concentration. The internet pushes it in the opposite direction.

Today the accountant can operate on a truly global scale. Next day air, long distance telephones, video conferencing, faxes, and e-mail can partially offset the lack of a local presence. Customers who are smart will value reliability and personal attention over corporate bigness in their accountants.