Bookkeeper or Accountant?

October 29, 2019 by OSYB Staff

If you are in a quandary about hiring a bookkeeper or an accountant, Intuit QuickBooks shares some information that may help you decide. Briefly, here are some steps that are needed in your accounting cycle and your financial professional should perform all of these steps:

• create a chart of accounts and keep it up-to-date
• maintain journal entries and general ledger
• manage trial balance and adjusting entries

It is most important that all the accounting tasks required to keep you in good financial standing are performed. Whether you pick a bookkeeper or accountant, they must be capable of performing the required accounting tasks with efficiency and accuracy every month.

Bookkeeping services include:

• Reviewing source documents and posting journal entries.
• Reconciling bank accounts and reviewing general ledger to ensure that financial information is posted to the correct accounts.
• Posting credit card activity and handling the record keeping needed to process payroll each month. Bookkeepers make changes to employee tax withholdings and wage rates, so that net pay is calculated correctly.
• Monitoring accounts payable to ensure that vendors are paid on time. Bookkeepers update the small business owner on accounts receivable, and may help the owner with receivable collections to improve cash flow.

Accounting services include:

• Supervising the bookkeeper, reviewing all of the accounting transactions and managing the record keeping process.
• Making adjustments to the trial balance and generating the income statement, balance sheet and statement of cash flows.
• Producing the financial reports required to generate tax returns. Sending the tax filings to the IRS, or working with a CPA firm that provides the service during tax season.

Keeping your business finances in order and up-to-date is an integral part of running a successful business. Make sure that you have the best mix of financial professionals handling your accounting needs, so that you can pay attention to what you do best.

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For full article: Can I hire a bookkeeper instead of an accountant?
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