Does the business practice of bartering conjure up images of the underground economy and irate IRS auditors? Think again. That view is as out-of-date as claiming that typewriters still rank as important pieces of office equipment.

Some of the country's largest companies engage in barter, as do many of its smallest. If you're not already bartering, you should consider it, as bartering's many benefits can materially help your business.

Simply defined, barter is the exchange of goods and services without the involvement of cash. If you ever traded a Mickey Mantle baseball card for a Duke Snider and a Peewee Reese, you've bartered. If you've helped your neighbor paint her fence in exchange for her assistance in tuning up your car, you've bartered. If you've provided accounting services in exchange for eyeglasses, you've bartered. We've all bartered and, in fact, people have been bartering for as long as they have lived in communal groups.

Only recently, however, has barter come into its own in our modern economy. Computers, which can track barter inventory and trades, have transformed the barter economy because they have made the mechanics of bartering easy and inexpensive. The spread of barter exchanges, which create markets for traders, has also fueled its explosive growth.

Today, $1 billion is bartered annually via exchanges, twice 1987's volume and three times 1984's, according to the International Reciprocal Trade Association, a group of barter exchanges headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia.

Commercial barter, which large companies use to rid themselves of excess inventory, totals an additional $6 billion or more. The IRTA estimates that 280,000 firms trade via barter exchanges. Those who barter one-on-one, for which no statistics are compiled, probably number in the millions. Barter is big business, and getting bigger.