Carol L. Cook
How did computers come into being? What can they do? Are we able to use them in the Accounting field? Do they simplify all the Accounting work? What’s the outlook for computers in the future?
These and many other questions have been crossing my mind. I have been afraid of the computers themselves, and thus have avoided their use in my subject area, Accounting. Literature everywhere is telling us that the computer simplifies everything. For Accounting students to become fully equipped to go out into the world of work, it is becoming necessary for them to understand how the ideas for the computer evolved over the years. It is becoming imperative that they understand how much simpler it is today to do Accounting on a computer. They must learn how to do their work on the computer.
This unit will include the history of the computer and all the ideas that led up to the computer of today. It will explain carefully how each idea evolved into a more simplified machine. It will detail the difficulties of Bookkeeping, using the “old methods and machines”. It will include the use of a computer and a spreadsheet. Then, the student will be taught how to take manually compiled work and feed it into the computer. We will follow carefully the cycle used by accountants, so that we can see how much simpler the work is if it is computerized. This unit will also include comparisons of the advantages and disadvantages of both the manual Accounting and the electronic Accounting. Finally, it will show the students how the “real world” is doing their Accounting (eg. speakers, field trips).
It is very important in Accounting I that the student is taught the manual methods of Accounting first. They must know how to do the transactions first. Thus, I plan to teach the entire cycle of Accounting.
