Small Business Bookkeeping 2023 Guide

A CIA is an accountant who has been certified in conducting internal audits. To receive this certification, an accountant must pass the required exams and have two years of professional experience. However, if your accountant does your bookkeeping, you may be paying more than you should for this service as you would generally pay more per hour for an accountant than a bookkeeper.

Accountants make sense of the numbers and translate complex ideas into understandable, useful, actionable information. They’re formally educated, industry regulated, and follow exacting professional and accounting standards. A complete answer to the question, “What do bookkeepers do”, and whether you should hire one, can only be answered if you explore their value further.

The Difference Between Bookkeepers and Accountants

In the U.S., an enrolled agent (EA) is a tax preparer authorized by the IRS to represent taxpayers. To become an EA, they have to pass a 3-part comprehensive exam covering individual and business tax returns or have experience working for the IRS. While it can be reassuring to see letters after an individual’s name, we recommend focusing instead on finding an accountant who offers the services you need, you feel comfortable with, and trust. At a minimum, an accountant must have a bachelor’s degree in accounting. They may also pursue certifications to demonstrate they have the expertise required to serve their clients.

You might start your business by handling accounting tasks yourself, then decide to hand off the day-to-day transaction input to a bookkeeper as you grow. If you already use specific tools to manage your books, you’ll want to discuss those tools with any bookkeepers or accountants you consider working with to ensure they’re familiar with them. Ultimately, the Bookkeeper’s responsibilities are to accurately record all day-to-day financial transactions of our company. Unlike accountants, bookkeepers don’t need specific licenses, certifications, or formal education. Many experienced and knowledgeable bookkeepers honed their skills with on-the-job training. Yes, some bookkeepers offer inventory management as part of their service.

Prepare Financial Statements

However, significant differences exist, like work conducted in each career and needed to be successful. The following analysis compares the education requirements, skills required, typical starting salaries, and job outlooks for accounting and bookkeepers. All small-business owners should consider hiring a professional accountant to handle their tax returns, at the least. When it comes to bookkeeping, some business owners choose to manage those tasks themselves. You may not mind balancing the books and handling financial transactions, and software like QuickBooks Online, FreshBooks and Xero can automate a significant amount of this work. But as your business expands, bringing on a bookkeeper can alleviate your workload and free up your time to devote to other areas of the business.

• If bookkeeping is something you truly dread, you’re going to spend as little time on it as possible, which could lead to inaccuracies and cause you even more headaches.
• Compared to other major employment sectors for bookkeepers, they host relatively few jobs.
• Bookkeepers can be incredibly helpful resources — but they’re not free.
• CPAs are accountants who have completed a higher level of education and have passed the CPA exam.
• Let’s break down the key differences between what a bookkeeper does and what an accountant does.
• They prepare your accounts, document daily financial transactions and ensure compliance with applicable standards.
• It is also crucial to reconcile your payroll regularly to make sure there are not any errors occurring.
• A bookkeeper must be able to shift focus easily and catch tiny, hidden mistakes in a budget or invoice.

Unlike CPAs (Certified Public Accountants), bookkeepers don’t require a license to perform their duties. They can, however, obtain optional certifications to set their expertise apart from their peers. It’s a bookkeeper’s job to make sure that the accounts are valid and up-to-date when the accountant needs them.

Bookkeepers can track your finances more accurately

As a business owner, it is important to understand your company’s financial health. Bookkeeping puts all the information in so that you can extract the necessary information to make decisions about hiring, marketing and growth. Another type of accounting method is the accrual-based accounting method. This method records both invoices and bills even if they haven’t been paid yet.

It’s easier to transfer data to more modern platforms like Xero than it is others (looking at you, QuickBooks Desktop). Hiring a bookkeeper can be one of the most relieving and rewarding investments your business can make. If your business is growing and you’re at the point where your finances are becoming too overwhelming to handle on your own, a bookkeeper can provide you with these benefits and more. Besides simply reviewing their LinkedIn or website, you could also find out more about how they operate their bookkeeping services during the interview process. As you can see, accounting and bookkeeping are different, so these terms shouldn’t be used interchangeably.

Financial vs. Management Reports: What AEC Firms Need to Know

Once determined, your bookkeeper monitors and maintains these records to ensure transactions are entered correctly, data remains accurate, and reports provide comprehensive information. For example, some small business owners do their own bookkeeping on software their accountant recommends or uses, providing it to the accountant on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis for action. Other small businesses hire a bookkeeper or employ a small accounting department bookkeeping and payroll services with data entry clerks reporting to the bookkeeper. Bookkeepers handle the day-to-day tasks of recording financial transactions while accountants provide insight and analysis of that data and generate accounting reports. Outsourcing also offers many benefits that you can’t get with an in-house bookkeeper. If you’re growing, the outsourced bookkeeping service should be able to help you scale by adding full service accounting when you are ready for it.