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International Accounting Day is the professional holiday of all accountants, and is also frequently referred to as International Accountant’s Day. It is celebrated on November 10th every year. Even though many countries have designated some local date for praising accountants, November 10th is the date that unites all people in the profession.
So what is the story of Accountant’s Day?
On November 10, 1494, a book titled Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalita (Everything About Arithmetic, Geometry and Proportion) was published in Venice. This was the first book that aimed to summarize the mathematical knowledge of those days. One of the tractatus of the Summa, entitled «Particularis de computis et scripturis» (About accounts and other writings) provides a detailed description of Venetian book-keeping. This was the first printed essay on doubleentry bookkeeping – called «Method of Venice» – and was direct base of some widespread works on mercantile accounting. The author of the book was Italian mathematician and Franciscan friar Luca Bartolomeo de Pacioli. Although double-entry bookkeeping had been around for centuries, Pacioli’s 27-page treatise on the subject has earned him the title “The Father of Modern Accounting.” The system he published included most of the accounting cycle as we know it today.
He described the use of journals and ledgers, and warned that a person should not go to sleep at night until the debits equalled the credits. His ledger had accounts for assets (including receivables and inventories), liabilities, capital, income, and expenses — the account categories that are reported on an organization’s balance sheet and income statement, respectively. He demonstrated year-end closing entries and proposed that a trial balance be used to prove a balanced ledger. Also, his treatise touches on a wide range of related topics from accounting ethics to cost accounting.