Role of Bookkeeper & Accountant and Their Significant For Your Business

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Published: October 4, 2021
Last Updated: February 13, 2025

Running a business is not a child’s play. To top it off, there are complex business processes that are not something every individual can conduct on their own. Bookkeeping and accounting is one such process. Let us understand your role as a business owner and how bookkeeper and accountant are significant for your business.

What is Your Role in Your Business As a Business Owner?

Now that we have understood the role of bookkeepers and accountants in your business, it is important to understand the responsibilities you need to take care of as a business owner. As a business owner, you need to play a strategic role and focus on the big picture. Engaging in the day-to-day activities of managing the service is not the top priority. However, if you have a small business, you might be doing everything on your own. Business owners do whatever is required to make their businesses a success. There are six key areas of responsibility for a business owner:

1. Planning and Strategy
2. Bookkeeping and Accounting
3. Staffing and Management
4. Compliance and Legal Responsibilities
5. Daily Operations
6. Inventory Management
7. Marketing and Sales
8. Customer Service

Once your business grows, you can not do everything on your own, and you will need teams who can handle each department. Thankfully, due to the advancement of technology and easy availability of knowledge, you can now outsource every task you are supposed to do.

Considering bookkeeping & accounting is one such function that you can not mess up at all, bookkeeping and accounting outsourcing will be one of the best decisions you can make for your business. We assume you are not an accounting genius, and your business’s core activity is not accounting. In such a case, it is best to outsource the process to experts with excellent skills and experience instead of trying to do it all on your own.

What is The Role of Bookkeeper and Accountant?

The role of bookkeeper and accountant is critical for business. A bookkeeper is responsible for recording and maintaining a business’ financial transactions. They play an important role as their task sets a foundation for the accountant to work on. Without bookkeepers, accountants can’t do their jobs. Talking about the accountant, an accountant is responsible for preparing and interpreting financial records.

We can sum up the role of bookkeeper and accountant as depicted in the image here; the bookkeeper does the day-to-day work so that the accountant can concentrate on strategic financial operations.

A bookkeeper task starts from data entry of all financial transactions in the business as when it occurs. They are also responsible for conducting bank reconciliation to balances the books. They also have to handle accounts receivable and accounts payables. In terms of accounts receivable, preparing invoices and sending them to clients, managing the accounts receivable ledger and chasing late payment is usually the bookkeeper’s responsibility. In the case of accounts payable, the bookkeeper makes payment on behalf of the business with the owner’s approval. A bookkeeper must also ensure that the business doesn’t run out of day-to-day money. They do so by monitoring the cash flow and forecasting future cash inflow and outflow.

Here onwards, we see an overlap of tasks, preparation of monthly reports, monthly payroll processing and preparing for taxation process is something that either a bookkeeper or accountant can conduct.

Typically an accountant’s duties and responsibilities include preparation of the end-of-the-year report and then preparing and lodging for tax returns while ensuring that financial statements and records comply with laws and regulations. They compile and present financial reports, perform audits and analyses business financial performance. They are more focused on business strategies like giving general business and financial advice and reducing costs or increasing profits.

In the case of small businesses, the role of an accountant can be taken over by the bookkeeper itself, provided they have relevant experience and knowledge.

Accountants are usually members of a statutory association. Qualified and registered accountants might call themselves Certified Public Accountants, Certified Practising Accountants, Chartered Certified Accountants, Chartered Accountants or other titles, depending on the country they’re working in.

In comparison, bookkeepers aren’t required to be certified to handle the books for their employer, but a few licensing is available that one can apply for.

Conclusion:

A famous television presenter Anthea Turner has rightly said, “The first rule of management is delegation. Don’t try and do everything yourself because you can’t.” Multitasking only costs you your productivity and results in a sub-standard quality of work. As for accounting & bookkeeping, you can not afford to deal with sub-standard work quality as it will only lead to high costs. Outsource today to enjoy the benefit of bookkeeping and accounting outsourcing.