What is the difference between a Bookkeeper and an Accountant? Which do I need?
A bookkeeper is a person who performs one or many duties in the bookkeeping cycle. In large companies, these duties are broken down into departments such as Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable or Payroll. In small companies, a bookkeeper may perform the entire bookkeeping process or might just enter the data. The people who perform these steps are often referred to as clerks, but they are, indeed, bookkeepers. They’re “keeping the books” for a company. A full-charge bookkeeper is someone who can do it all – from compiling the data into the General Ledger to preparing financial statements. Someone has to set up the bookkeeping system, monitor it, and interpret the results. This process is accounting and is much less mechanical and more subjective. Accounting begins with a system that benefits the business by capturing the financial information in a useful manner without being overly complex for the bookkeeper. Once the system is in place, the accountant monitors the system to ensure i
