5.1 Summary
Accounting unconsciously developed from socio-economic and political needs of the society by tracking down
the historical and current events in business and economics. The inherent problems of measurement, proportion,
recording and coincidence of wants eased out by the introduction of standard unit of measurement. The growth
in business that culminated into industrial revolution compelled accounting to move to another stage of
development called decomputis, or 'charge' and 'discharge' system of bookkeeping. This system however did not
facilitate the determination of profit because it lacks method of inventory valuation, cost ascertainment and
provision for depreciation. The emergence of double entry system was to minimize fraud, errors,
misappropriation and pilfering of assets. The system in most cases allowed equity owners to have confidence on
the works and reports of the stewards (management), who were entrusted with the capital assets of the owners.
The subsequent issues and development in accounting relates to the Generally Accepted Accounting principles
(GAAP), a period when owners entrust their resources to the management group for target objective. Auditing
and investigation however emerged to resolve conflict among users of financial statements. Users however, with
the exception of management, gain assurance on the financial statement when auditors certify that the accounts
have been prepared in line with the generally accepted accounting principles. Decisions by stakeholders on
investment, takeover, merger and acquisition were normally based on non-qualification of auditors' reports.
Finally today, accounting packages cum information technology and computing are readily available to ensure
timely production of financial reports at minimum cost, high speed and accuracy.