Evidence of financial record keeping has been found in Mesopotamia, Babylon, Sumer, and Assyria as far back as 7000 BC. Archives have been discovered, showing the recording of accounts from farm produce in ancient Greece as well as from the Roman Empire.

​

But it’s in the 15th century that the roots of modern bookkeeping can be found. And fittingly, there are two entries in the history books for who documented the double-entry system. Some credit Benedetto Cotrugli and his 1458 book Of Commerce and the Perfect Merchant. But most regard Luca Pacioli as the father of bookkeeping, for his 1494 book Review of Arithmetic, Geometry, Ratio, and Proportion.

​

An Italian mathematician and Franciscan monk, Pacioli wrote the first popular description of the double-entry system and the use of various bookkeeping tools such as journals and ledgers. His book became the teaching tool for bookkeeping and accounting for the next several hundred years. Bookkeeping became a recognized profession in the UK and the US in the 1800s.