Several years ago I attended a local community college. One of the subjects I took was Accounting I. It was the basic bookkeeping/accounting class, and you learned about debits and credits, the accounting formula, balance sheets, income statements, etc. Because I’d taken bookkeeping in high school, I was somewhat familiar with those items.
One thing I didn’t know continues to stick out to me today: the history of double-entry bookkeeping. Our professor explained that before double-entry bookkeeping was widely accepted, single-entry was used. It was easy to manipulate, however, and a business had a difficult time of keeping track of whether it was making money, and exactly how its money was spent.
A monk, Fra Luca Pacioli, wrote a book which popularized double-entry bookkeeping. Double-entry bookkeeping means for each accounting transaction, there are two equal and corresponding entries: the debit on one side, the credit on the other. For example, if debits total $50,000, the credits must total $50,000. The accounting entries are then “in balance”. Double-entry bookkeeping is the standard procedure, regardless of whether the bookkeeping is done manually or electronically by computer software.
Our professor said that at the top of each journal page, Fra Pacioli wrote the words, “To the Glory of God”. The monk recognized that God is the God of order, and he brought that into the accounting profession. Besides establishing order, double-entry bookkeeping makes it easier to find errors because of the requirement for balance, and a business can quickly see the details as well as the whole picture of the financial aspect.
Until that class I regarded accounting as a cold profession, untouched by the force of faith. When I saw God’s imprint on it, my opinion changed. God, working through someone by faith, can influence anything!
Some Scriptures: Genesis, chapters 1 and 2; John 1:3; Colossians 1:16, 17; Colossians 2:5; Colossians 3:22,23,24
For further info., check out: trendingaccounting.com/2022/04/history-of-double-entry-accounting-html.
©P. Booher
Country Ripples 
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