The world of accounting and bookkeeping from Brisbane has changes a lot over the centuries. An abacus, scrap of paper, or perhaps even a hand-shake and a good memory was all that was needed. But like all things throughout human history, things change. As new needs for record keeping came into play, so did laws and regulations. Eventually that gave birth to double entry bookkeeping. That’s right, the good old ledger system. What a grind that was for most of us, Especially the poor fellow who had to sit by a window resting on the ledge so he had enough light, and scribing away in his best writing. That’s where the term ledger came from.

Then as the nature of business changed where we had debtors and creditors, exchanges and returns and so on, so did the forms and rules of accounting. Then of course came tax, which had always been with us, but tax laws became more complicated, and therefore how accounts had to be kept became more complicated. All neatly hand-written sales dockets, invoices and transaction entries.

Over time the forms and systems changed. The calculator made a big difference to accuracy and simplifying the process of verification and audit. The next big improvement was the birth of the computer age. A whole lot of the drudgery was removed form accounting and bookkeeping and over the decades software and systems improvements made it even more simpler to keep track of the cash. Then of course computers allowed a businessman or his accountant to produce all sorts of reports and comparisons. How we did this year to the same period last year, profit trends, expense trend, forecasts and so on.

Then came the Internet. Now that really kicked things up a notch or two. What the Internet meant was that computers could be networked, access external services such as the tax department. Communications between customers, business and suppliers was simplified as well. The next big innovation was on-line accounting. Customers could up-load information to factoring firms, banks and even your accountant.

A range of software packages started to emerge, all with different formats, but mostly that was just eye candy, the fundamental principles or accounting, what goes where, have not changed. And like a lot of things in life one company brought out another and slowly the software on offer dwindled, but it improved, became more expensive as the market was cornered and then things changed again, in a way no one would have imagined a decade or two ago.

Accounting went to heaven. And Xero Accounting took them there. Its cloud technology based and has really changed the way accounting happens. It’s interactive, network able, secure and above all, mobile. Use your mobile phone, computer, or a pod and you have access to your accounts wherever you are around the world.