2. The early Renaissance. The birth of the monetary economy, where merchants depended on bookkeeping to oversee multiple simultaneous transactions financed by bank loan. Luca Pacioli was the author of a book on mathematics, which was printed and published in Venice, in 1494, and included a 27-page section on bookkeeping. This is seen as the first known published work on the topic of accounting, and includes a description of a double entry bookkeeping and ledger classes, concepts that are in use until this very day.
3. The Dutch East India company became the first company in history to issue bonds and shares of stock to the general public. In other words, it was officially the first publicly traded company, because it was the first company to be ever actually listed on a official stock exchange. This new ownership structure drove further developments in accounting methods.
4. The industrial revolution started in the late 1700s in Britain. The steam engine is an important symbol for the technical developments around the time. As machines took the central role in manufacturing, and labor was largely seen as expandable, machines became the assets on the balance sheet and people a mere expense in the income statement.
5. The advent of the computer,shaking up and revolutionizing society to this very day. Large parts of the transaction processing can now be fully automated, and new ways of building organizations emerge.
Accounting frameworks like us GAAP and IFRS continue to evolve, adapting to the changing world around us.
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