Bookkeepers are not the same as accountants
As a small business owner, you are juggling several tasks and most of them at once. You also need to worry not only about running your business, you also need to worry about your income, taking care of your customers and keeping records and financial information. Doing all these is tough, so you are happy to be able to have the help of your accountant mainly for your financial health tracking. You’re quite confused however, for the need of a bookkeeper, do you really need both an accountant and a bookkeeper?
Accountants Main Roles:
- Prepares and perform lodgment of statutory returns
- Give advice on legal entity structures
- Financial and Business Advises
Accountants are usually members of associations, most are being qualified and registered and call themselves a “Certified Public Accountant” (CPA), “Chartered Accountants” (CAs) depending on which country they’re working from.
Bookkeeper Main Roles:
- Record and Organise Financial Transactions
- Training and Helping Clients with their Accounting Software
- Implement Efficient Document Management and Inventory control
- If “Point of Sale” (POS) system is available, help capture daily transactions
- Take a look at internal Business Processes to help develop, maintain, review and recommend
- …and more!
Bookkeepers usually manage a lot of tasks on behalf of businesses, focusing mainly in the recording, reporting and organizing all of the Financial Transactions to maintain an efficient operation of businesses.
Different bookkeepers have different specialisation, it is best to ask bookkeepers what they are best at for your particular needs.
Since we are more focused on the work of the Bookkeeper, what do they really do?
To keep the business running smoothly, your bookkeepers usually do the following tasks:
Most of your daily financial transactions are being tracked and recorded like bank transactions. It also helps if your daily business bank transactions are being fed automatically on your accounting software. This will save entry time and a better and quick overview of the business cash flow.Sends out Invoices and managing the ledgers for account receivable
One of the main responsibilities of your bookkeeper is to prepare your invoices and send them out to clients. Since they also manage your Accounts Receivable ledgers, they therefore chase late payments.
Accounts payable ledger handling
A business can assign a certain amount to the bookkeepers where they will be allowed to make payments on your behalf. They will usually make payments to your suppliers, your business expenses and disbursing petty cash.
Monitoring cash flow
This is the most important task of your bookkeeper, making sure your business doesn’t run out of day-to-day cash. They usually watch the balance between income and expense, taking action and offering advice when the company needs more cash or streamline their expenses.
Help the accountant prepare your books
When your accountant requests for your records, the bookkeeper ensures that they are valid up to the latest date. Allowing in return for your accountant to be efficient in applying their business recommendations, make better reports and complete tax returns data.
In essence, all of those daily burning and taxing tasks are being done by your bookkeeper so that you can concentrate on running your business and the accountant can focus on the financial operations. Usually, your accountant will always ask if you have a good bookkeeper and you really need one to make sure you’re running your business to its optimal potential.