The world knows Leonardo da Vinci, as a master of artistry, but few also know him as a mathematical genius. He wove stories with brushes and numbers, yet there was another, who perhaps, was an even greater mathematician, but the world barely knows.

His name was Luca Pacioli. He was a friar, who was so good at math that he taught Leonardo da Vinci, whenever they would hang out together. Now, imagine Italy during the Renaissance, full of busy merchants trying to figure out how to do business.

Luca Pacioli knew a special way of keeping track of money, called the double-entry system. This method was already being used by the merchants in Venice. Surprisingly, a lot of what Luca wrote back then is still used by accountants today, like journals, ledgers, and other important stuff.

Even though we live in a world of super cool technology, many of the rules accountants follow today were set by Luca Pacioli back in medieval times. He not only gave us Rule 72, beating others by a hundred years but also wrote a ton about the double-entry system.

Luca gave credit to his friend Benedetto Cotrugli for coming up with the double-entry method even earlier, like 36 years before Luca wrote about it. The Common belief is that Italy was using this system for hundreds of years before Luca, but he ’was, in fact,  the first one to put it down on paper.

Pacioli once said, “Don’t go to sleep until the money going out equals the money coming in.” Imagine how many nights accountants spend making sure everything adds up, keeping track of things, and giving an accurate analysis of spends, gains, and losses in one place. What if there was a personal accountant who did all this with a click of a button?

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