The Evolution of Expenses: A Timeline of Expense Reporting Techniques

In today’s modern age where we walk around with full computers in our pockets, it’s hard to imagine a time when things were more difficult. Today, individuals and businesses can use apps to create budgets and keep track of their finances, but this has not always been the case.

From counting rocks in the Stone Age to the invention of the abacus in ancient cities, expense management was rather tedious until the first cash register was patented in 1883. But it took nearly a century after that for the invention of accounting software in the 1970s. From there computers continued to shrink while the software capabilities grew more powerful, so today a handheld device can manage the finances of an entire company. It’s exciting to predict what the future will bring in the field of expense management. Follow the timeline below by ExpenseIt from Concur to watch how expense tracking has evolved from the Stone Age through today.

Read more: 12 Major Business Expenses (and How to Reduce Them)