When most small business owners consider the terms bookkeeping and accounting, they often use them interchangeably. While it’s true both bookkeeping and accounting are important within the management of your company’s finances, some key differences between the 2 functions do exist. Therefore, business owners got to understand the roles of every and the way they work together to make sure your company’s success.

Yes, bookkeeping and accounting both need to do with money and therefore the financial picture of your business, but there are key differences. Here’s your chance to know them.When running your business, your ability to grow and succeed is usually hooked in to how organized your financial records are. But managing your business finances is quite just recording your financial transactions and balancing your checkbook. For your business to flourish, you want to be ready to access and use your company’s financial reports to develop a workable business strategy. While both bookkeepers and accountants handle your business’s financial information, they perform different tasks within your company’s financial cycle.

The Function of Bookkeeping

Bookkeeping is comprised of the tasks required during the primary a part of the accounting process. It involves the consistent, timely, and accurate recording of a business’s financial transactions in chronological order. A bookkeeper’s duties include:

Maintaining an entire and arranged set of books, comprised of the overall ledger and every one subledgers (i.e., fixed assets, inventories, assets , accounts payable, cash, tax, costs, and sales) during which to post financial transactions.
Creating and issuing customer invoices.
Recording suppliers’ invoices.
Paying suppliers.
Logging cash receipts from customers.
Documenting inventory changes.
Processing employee payroll.
Managing fund transactions.
Preserving all supporting documents for all business transactions.

A bookkeeper follows a selected set of procedures to perform these duties on a repetitive basis. The complexity of a company’s bookkeeping system depends on the dimensions of the business and the way many transactions are completed on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Typically, an accountant or the tiny business owner oversees the bookkeeper’s work.

The Function of Accounting

Accounting involves the method of analyzing, interpreting, reporting, and summarizing the financial data recorded by the bookkeeper or the business owner. a number of an accountant’s responsibilities include:

Preparing adjusted entries (i.e., earned revenue or incurred expenses that haven’t yet been recorded during the bookkeeping process).
Preparing financial statements on the condition and performance of the corporate .
Creating management reports to deal with specific issues.
Analyzing operations costs.
Creating a corporation budget.
Compiling tax returns from the financial data.
Helping the business owner understand the company’s financial data and therefore the impact of his/her financial decisions.

Basically, the accounting process helps you understand where your business stands financially at any point in time by measuring your company’s progress within the terms of growth and financial success. Additionally, the financial data generated helps you to form informed business decisions, so you'll plan for your company’s future.