TECHNICIAN IN ACCOUNTING FOR COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL OPERATIONS FATHER OF ACCOUNTING AUTHOR AYMEI MELANNY VEGA JIMENEZ For us to be talking about International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) today, there must have been someone who began to investigate the way in which the wealth of individuals and businesses was recorded. That someone is Luca Pacioli, a Franciscan friar who during the Renaissance studied the way Venetian merchants kept their accounts. Luca Pacioli was born in 1445 in Sansepolcro, Tuscany, Italy. Since he was a child he was close to the artisans and merchants of his small town, so he became interested in commercial mathematics. Pacioli was very interested in mathematics and considered it the sum of several geometry, elements: astrology arithmetic, (not yet differentiated from astronomy), music, perspective, architecture and cosmography, which by then included cosmology, topography and geography. During his life he published several books, such as De La Divina Proporción, in which he deals with topics such as the geometry used by the artists of his time among them Leonardo Da Vinci, with whom he worked- and by the architect Vitruvius. He also wrote a book in which he taught chess, De Ludo Scacchorum, a game of which he was a fan. In the publication Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalita, he analyzes the use of double entry by Venetian accountants. It is not that Pacioli invented this method, but he documented it and added elements to perfect it. His legacy, which leads him to be called 'father of accounting', is summarized in Tractus XI- Particularis de computis et scripturis. There are 36 chapters in which he uses four books (Inventory and Balances, Draft or Voucher, Journal and General Ledger) and defines the rules of the mathematical principle of double entry: There is no debtor without a creditor. The amount owed to one or more accounts must be equal to the amount credited. Everyone who receives owes the person who gives or delivers. Every value that enters is a debtor and every value that leaves is a creditor. Every loss is a debtor and every gain is a creditor.
