What are the importance of computers in the accounting firm?

When I first began accounting some 20+ years ago, computers were pretty much non-existent. Books were kept the "old fashioned" way, hand written entries were made in the ledger, the journal, even the balance sheet, statement of retained earnings, etc, were all done by hand. This is very tedious work and time consuming, not only is it easy to transpose numbers, but you had to manually add all debits and credits to insure that they balanced.

Today computers can list all accounts, entries are made quickly and easily, though human error still plays a role, we are not perfect, mistakes are caught faster and corrected more easily than before computers came along. Figures such as balances, ratiOS, etc are more reliable as well.

Computers play a huge role in many businesses and their account aspect of the business. It's easier to enter and keep up with sales, expenses, assets, etc. Computers in payroll make figuring taxes and other holdings from an employee's income much faster and more reliable.

Just think, without computers, we'd be back to handwriting "everything" and using regular adding machines to figure all our expenses, etc. Computers have made these things for anyone much quicker, more reliable, and a lot safer in many ways.