02/07/2024
📈 INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT ACCOUNTING
1️⃣ The English word “accounting” comes from the noun “account,” which originated from the Old French “acont,” meaning “account or terminal payment.”
2️⃣ The word accountant in the English language is derived from the Old French word "compter," which is also derived from the Latin word "computare". It was formerly written as "accomptant," which was always pronounced by dropping the "p,".
3️⃣ Dating back to the Mesopotamian Uruk period, the following was etched on a clay tablet: “29,086 measures barley 37 months Kushim,” which scholars believe meant “A total of 29,086 measures of barley were received over the course of 37 months by Kushim.”
4️⃣ A 23-year-old accountant named Walter Diemer accidentally invented bubble gum while testing recipes in 1928.
5️⃣ Financial crimes always leave a footprint. In the case of the famous mobster Al Capone, a two-year forensic accounting investigation was conducted by the US Treasury Department and led by special agent (and accountant) Frank Wilson, leading to Capone’s arrest.
6️⃣ The token shapes represented various kinds of goods prevalent in the farming economy at the time. A cone stood for a small measurement of barley, a sphere for a larger measurement, and a disc represented sheep.
7️⃣ Luca Pacioli was the first person to publish a detailed double-entry accounting system in which every debit (Latin for “he owes”) was matched to a credit (“he trusts”).
8️⃣ Believe it or not, Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones and Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin were both pursuing accounting before their music careers took off.
9️⃣ On 9 January 1799, British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger introduced a temporary measure to help cover the cost of his country’s war with Napoleon’s France — a direct tax on citizens’ earned wealth, known as income tax.
1️⃣0️⃣ A team of nine accountants spend up to 1,700 hours prior to Oscar night counting the academy award ballots cast in each category by hand.
1️⃣1️⃣ Both of these words have Latin origins, where debit is derived from the word “debitum” (what is due), while credit is derived from the word “creditum” (that which is entrusted).
1️⃣2️⃣ The FBI employs more than 2,000 accounting special agents, who use their forensic accounting skills to solve all manner of crimes.
