What is the Role of a Bookkeeper and Does Your Business Need

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 Bookkeepers play a crucial role in the accounting side of a business, not only are they responsible for providing accurate and current financial information about a business, but they also assist accountants to prepare financial reports that enable business owners decision-making. 

 While bookkeepers and accountants work closely together and one could perform duties in the absence of the other, a bookkeeper’s role is administrative in that it oversees day-to-day transactions and is largely concerned with record-keeping. An accountant plays a more subjective role in his/her ability to provide financial insights by studying and interpreting the data a bookkeeper provides. An accountant can typically be considered a bookkeeper if a business requires them to double up on their functionality, but a bookkeeper cannot play an accounting role without the proper certification. 

• Providing financial reports: The bookkeeper in your business typically gathers and inputs the data accountants use to generate financial reports that offer insights into financial trends within the business. The accountant uses a bookkeeper’s raw data to help business owners better understand their financial decisions and to enable them to make more informed business decisions.
• Tax filing: Both bookkeepers and accountants play a role in the gathering and preparing of information for tax filing purposes. Bookkeepers keep records of transactions and therefore are closely linked to the gathering of the data, while accountants are equipped to interpret this data for tax filing purposes. It is important to note that while bookkeepers and accountants play their respective roles in the tax preparation process, neither are considered “enrolled preparers,” which means they have no standing with the IRS in the matter of signing tax returns or representing clients during tax audits and other matters before the IRS. Only CPAs and IRS Enrolled Agents can represent a taxpayer before the IRS.

While a bookkeeper and accountant can perform the same functions it is important to consider the financial needs of your business, as well as your business budget when deciding which role to recruit within your company. It is also important to note that employing the services of a bookkeeper or accountant, doesn’t automatically mean that your business has a certified tax agent.

With reliable accounting software, many of your business’s bookkeeping functions can be automated, but you would still require the expertise of either a professional bookkeeper or accountant to discern and decipher the figures, depending on your business needs.

At ProAccountants, we offer a host of outsourced accounting services. Whether it be accounting, bookkeeping, or controller services you need, we can help you decide which of the accounting roles your business needs most. You can also outsource a combination of these functions to our accounting experts, who have years of experience and expertise across different industries.