The Australian Institute of Incorporated Accountants (1892–1938)

Abstract

Although there are accounts of the history of many of the early accounting bodies established in Australia, there has to date been very little recorded about the activities of the body based in the Western District of Victoria which was incorporated in 1892 as the Australian Institute of Incorporated Accountants (AIIA). This paper provides an account of the formation of the AIIA as a product of the importation of the British model of the accounting profession and elucidates the body's involvement with three issues significant to Victorian accountants in the period to 1906. It is shown that the AIIA faded into oblivion largely because of the adoption of a country membership base in Victoria with no penetration into the rapidly expanding Victorian capital city of Melbourne, the base from where the accounting bodies, which ultimately dominated the profession in Victoria, originated.