THE EFFECTIVENESS OF INSTITUTE OF CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT OF NIGERIA (ICAN) AS AN AGENCY FOR CONTINUING EDUCATION.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Generally the history of accounting as a mere recording of business transactions is as old as human society itself.  As soon as man begin to live in society transaction started, ranging from barter, at the earlier stage, to monetary transaction later.  It can thus be conceived that as soon as man began transaction he began to keep records.  This is of course the same all over the world including Nigeria.

According to Braide; “the only means by which a business man knows how much he owns and how much another person owns him is by keeping records.  The steward or agent of a landowner by keeping records of how he has collected and used his master’s goods and money, car account for his dealings to his master.

However, when accounting is seen in the modern concept it is more sophisticated and new.

Garbutt defined accounting as a discipline concerned with the recording analysis and forecasting of income and wealth of business and other entities …  He explained further that it records in many terms, the flow of economic values between or within and economic entities.

The accounting profession in this modern concept is thus new.  According to Okpan (1988) the first known treatment of the subject of accounting was written in 1494.  It was in 1494, two years after the discovery of America, that an Italian monk and mathematician Fr. Luca Pacioli, published the first known general instruction on double entry in England generated the impetus for the development of new approaches in accounting.  The general introduction of double entry in England was made by Richard Grafton who later became the treasurer of the profession in