Dif between a book keeper and a financial accountant?

Kayalana99

My understanding is a book keeper do the books i.e double entry, but if this is already done...what is left for the accountant to do ..does he just check it over and see where tax can be saved?

Sorry if its a dumb question.

Laurajo_2

It varies....often bookkeepers do the data entry and an accountant will prepare the adjustments such as accruals, depreciation, bad debt provisions etc and prepare the final accounts, however some bookkeepers will do these things also. There's a lot of crossover. In some cases, the accountant will have more technical knowledge than the bookkeeper and will prepare vat returns, file accounts with company's house, prepare tax returns. Again, some bookkeepers will do that, and run payroll.

Most commonly, an accountant will take the bookkeepers data and turn it into a set of accounts - checking postings etc, make ajdustments, check vat, debtors, creditors....of course, a very good bookkeeper can save a fortunes in accountancy fees.

Some businesses won't employ a bookkeeper and just give their records to an accountant to sort, particularly owner managed businesses and sole traders.

DigForVictory

About £150 an hour

CKhalvashi

Laurajo wrote: »

It varies....often bookkeepers do the data entry and an accountant will prepare the adjustments such as accruals, depreciation, bad debt provisions etc and prepare the final accounts, however some bookkeepers will do these things also. There's a lot of crossover. In some cases, the accountant will have more technical knowledge than the bookkeeper and will prepare vat returns, file accounts with company's house, prepare tax returns. Again, some bookkeepers will do that, and run payroll.

Most commonly, an accountant will take the bookkeepers data and turn it into a set of accounts - checking postings etc, make ajdustments, check vat, debtors, creditors....of course, a very good bookkeeper can save a fortunes in accountancy fees.

Some businesses won't employ a bookkeeper and just give their records to an accountant to sort, particularly owner managed businesses and sole traders.

This is the long and short of it.

We employ a part time accountant (25h/week) purely due to the amount of export we do (in excess of 50% of our turnover last month, and about 40% in last year), due to EU etc, but a bookkeeper could do most of it, and have it handled by an accountant purely for tax.

CK