Bookkeeper Job Description: What Is Bookkeeping?

When choosing a new career, it’s also important to have some sort of idea about how many positions will be opening within that field in the future. Sometimes these two titles are used interchangeably, bookkeeper but they are actually two very different positions. To help you better understand how it is they differ, it helps to first recognize what each one is on a foundational level.

The tax accountant has a specialization in the field of taxation and the regulations that come with business mergers, for instance. These accountants may also offer advice on tax structures or tax deductions. These accompanying documents provide the audit trail for each transaction and are an important part of maintaining accurate records in the event of an audit. Now that you have a clearer understanding of the differences between a bookkeeper and an accountant, it will become easier to choose the career path that makes the most sense for you.

Computerized bookkeeping

A bookkeeper can expect to earn a salary in the range of$30,000-$60,000 a year in the US. However, compensation will widely vary depending on the employer, location, and candidate experience. Bigger companies tend to offer better compensation for bookkeepers; this is largely due to the increased volume of transactions and data. A multinational corporation performs hundreds of transactions a second, while a small business might perform less than a hundred in a day. As a liaison between departments, a bookkeeper interacts with department heads on a daily basis to discuss inventory needs. If merchandise, products or office supplies are running low, the bookkeeper must order more.

Technological advances facilitated a move to a computer-based system, with software available to purchase and download to a desktop. Covers information at the intersection of healthcare, education and employment. Our contributors are familiar with a wide range of subjects covering professional development, career advancement, healthcare industry-specific topics, and education. Take our free career test to find out if bookkeeper is one of your top career matches. Initially, the self-employed are likely to be not just managing director but designer, shop floor worker, financial controller, teamaker and bookkeeper. The matter would be much clearer if those people were still called clerks and bookkeepers.

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And at a certain point, your time is better spent building your business than navigating DIY tutorial videos. That said, bookkeeping is more than just dropping numbers into a spreadsheet—it takes meticulous analysis and just enough legal know-how. After all, bookkeepers will help you survive an audit by making sure your financial records are in order and your deductions are legal.

• Some of the key tasks for accountants include tax return preparation, conducting routine reviews of various financial statements, and performing account analysis.
• They perform daily accounting tasks such as monthly financial reporting, general ledger entries, and record payments and adjustments.
• Accountants take that financial data and help you see the bigger picture and the path your business is on.

The initial classifications and recording of a company’s transactions like bills paid, daily sales and payroll or another expenditure fall to a bookkeeper. There is, however, no line in the accounting processes where a bookkeeper’s role should end and that of the accountant to begin. Accounting processes may call for an accountant to correlate and indemnify the books or records presented by a bookkeeper.

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Develops system to account for financial transactions by establishing a chart of accounts; defining bookkeeping policies and procedures. At this point, you could confidently answer, “What does a bookkeeper do?

Harold Averkamp has worked as a university accounting instructor, accountant, and consultant for more than 25 years. He is the sole author of all the materials on AccountingCoach.com. My suggestion is to first read our free 13-part Bookkeeping Explanation and take our Bookeeping Practice Quiz. Next, you can start studying each of the bookkeeping-related topics found on our Bookkeeping training page. LeAnn Lewis, who always found a way to support them, found a job as a bookkeeper at Lakeside Travel Agency.