This study is aimed at examining the evolution and development of accounting as well as double entry Bookkeeping system (DEBS) of accounting by reviewing what past scholars and researchers have done in relation to the subject matter, and also look at the relevance of DEBS from Pacioli’s era to the modern business world. Double-entry accounting is based on the accounting equation that was developed around 1494 by Luca Pacioli. The equation is profound in its simplicity: Assets = Liabilities + Equity. Double-entry. Accounting practitioners puts this equation to use by making sure that every financial transaction is recorded with an entry that utilizes at least two accounts and where the total amount of money on the left, the debit side, equals the total amount of money on the right, the credit side. Additionally, it was gathered that evidenced DEBS can be found in the Holy Bible when God created the heavens and the earth, man and woman (Gen 1:1-22) and God commanded Noah to pick all creatures into his ark, male and female” (Gen 6:17-22). However, it was also gathered that DEBS existed amongst the early Italian merchants before Pacioli came into the scene. But the practice prior to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was rather crude because there were no formal documented principles to be followed. Hence, the outburst of Pacioli in the fifteenth century recorded a landmark publicity in the development of this all-embracing accounting system. The first ever published treatise about DEBS was the work of Luca Pacioli in his book titled “Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalita”. Pacioli’s work became the road map for the development of DEBS of accounting. Therefore, as a departure from majority of scholars and researches in accounting literature who clinched that Luca Pacioli is the father of accounting. This study is conducted to likeness Pacioli to the father of modern accounting, having laid the milestone for the codification, development, preservation, and sustenance of DEBS of accounting.
Keywords: Accounting Principles, Accounting System, Accounting development, Double Entry Bookkeeping, and Modern Accounting
