WIDENING SCOPE

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 105, 30 October 1940, Page 8

WIDENING SCOPE

ACCOUNTANTS 7 PROFESSION

SYSTEMS OF THE PAST

I Accountants were supposed by many i people to be without a sense of humour, [which was probably due to having to restrain themselves so much at meetings in order not lo appear partisan, said Mr. H. Nankervis, president of the New Zealand Society of Accountants, [addressing the Rotary Club yesterday. I Not so many years ago an auditor j | was looked on merely as a man who i came in and did a little checking, and j 'then signed the balance-sheet. That had changed during the last few years, as today public accountants and auditors were asked to perform all kinds of duties. Not long ago it was rare to see an accountant as a member of a board of directors in the Dominions or England, but now it was quite common. EARLY COUNTING DIFFICULTIES. Thousands of years 8.C., though peoples had in some instances developed a high state of civilisation, they were handicapped by their inability to count, said Mr. Nankervis. Many tribes could only count up to 2, and did not j even have a word for that numeral, biit indicated 2 by pointing to their ears or eyes. Later they began to use the joints of their fingers to count with. For some time they stuck at 6, and their six meant not only 6 but anything over 6, which he suggested was the system of accounting still practised on many golf coui'ses. Progress j was made when they began to use] their fingers and toes to indicate! numerals, but they stopped short at 9, there being nothing to represent 0. The nought finally came from an Arabian civilisation about 3000 B.C. Once they established the nought, calculations could be made easily, and they made great use of the discovery. It was interesting to note that the words "arithmetic" and "algebra" both came from the Arabic tongue. The only method of counting prior to that jwas by the use of the abacus, a string I of beads, or beads on a frame of wires. ! A type of abacus was still used in the 'East. It was said that modern adding ■ machines were not much use to many iof the Chinese counting houses, as their Chinese clerks could add just as ; quickly with the abacus. j IN THE DAYS OF BABYLON. i It was on record that money was I used in Babylon as far back as 2300 8.C., and there also was an accounting system. They had their letters, figures, partnerships, and all the activities that went to make up commercial life today. The records in those days jwere kept on clay, inscribed when the | clay was soft, and dried into permanjency either by baking in the sun or I the oven. The scribes of old acted as i barristers, attorneys, and accountants. i Mr. Nankervis said the earliest sysjtern of accounting in Britain of which ; there was any record were the Exchequers of England and Scotland, and I the oldest account which had been preserved was that of the English Pipe Roll of 1131. The evidence showed that for all systems in vogue records | were invariably checked by another. '"Wherever the advance of civilisation j brought about the necessity of one man being entrusted with the property of anothei*, some kind of check on the fidelity of the man was instituted. There was really nothing new. The systems only changed to meet the times.