How important is the accounting process in our daily life. In many aspects of daily life the accounting process involves all people on both a personal and professional level. From managing family budgets to financial planning for retirement, consumers trust that people who work in the financial industry make sure that the financing entrusted to them goes to or is spent on whatever undertaking the customer specifies. People who enter the accounting profession do so because it is something they are good at or interested in. They go through the education system that teaches proper accounting methods and techniques and ultimately these students graduate with a bachelor's degree that specifies that this graduate has passed all the classes needed to work in the Accounting field. After being hired, an employee must demonstrate the ability to meet a company's accounting needs or perhaps the ability to help potential clients seeking advice from a financial planning firm. Companies that perform well will establish a good reputation which in turn will be beneficial to the future of the company. With thousands of accounting firms in the United States and the ease with which the Internet can help you search for reputable companies, as well as the ability to check ratings, finding companies that are at the top of the list is relatively easy, making it necessary to have a good reputation is even more important. Deloitte, PwC and Ernest & Young are currently ranked first, second and third respectively based on each company's annual revenue (Companies). These companies undergo a thorough audit... Even easier is to find the exact opposite, i.e. accounting scandals, which most often have accounting firms working for...... half the paper ..... .ance given in his Summa. What Pacioli also believed, however, was that profits should not be blindly pursued and that those who succeed in business should seek to share the fruits of their labor with those less fortunate. Hundreds of years ago, Brother Luke felt it was important to write about how businesses should conduct accounting records and should do so in the most honest and reverent manner. Today, the United States has been plagued by stories of companies using unethical practices, which in turn have caused such turmoil and destruction that it is obvious that Friar Luke's warnings have gone unheeded. To capture a truer picture of what the consequences of not practicing ethical accounting are, we can briefly explore some more recent examples of the ramifications of conducting unethical accounting practices in the business world.