When asked to think about accounting, most people imagine numbers, calculators, spreadsheets and offices populated by smart-suited bean counters hunched over reports. You most certainly think about money.

But by breaking away from this image and reclaiming the term “accountant” to speak to a wider number of everyday activities, we can understand the vital, often positive role accounting plays in our lives.

Accounting is one of the oldest forms of communication in human history, perhaps even pre-dating other forms of written language. From these origins, it has been intrinsically linked with numerical, often financial, information.

The word account comes from the Latin verb computare, meaning to count, sum up, reckon together, which established its numerical base. Later, the French term acont tied it specifically with the counting of money – the reckoning of money received and paid. Over time, this definition has developed into our narrow association of accounting today, not only with counting, nor with the counting of money, but in particular the counting of money by a qualified professional: the accountant.

However, this need not be the only way to thinking of accounting – or accountants. Alongside the dominant definition that refers to managing finances, another one has........

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