What Does a Bookkeeper Do?

Stumbled across this article, and I thought it seemed poignant.  The reason for this is because this question is posed to us more often than you think.  So, it only seems proper to post this article for anyone who may be unfamiliar with the responsibilities of a bookkeeper.

Here is an excerpt from the article: "What does a bookkeeper do? I've asked lots of people in Humboldt County this question over the years and rarely hear a truly satisfying answer.

When I ask bookkeepers what they do, they roll their eyes and say, “Everything!” Many accountants and business owners, on the other hand, quote their college accounting textbook. All the textbooks define bookkeeping as “the record-keeping function of accounting.” This seems to translate directly as “data entry,” or “paying bills.” Occasionally, “doing payroll” also makes the list.

This definition may have been accurate when a Victorian-era Bob Cratchett was scratching entries into Scrooge's huge ledger books with his quill pen, but it's not true anymore. The advent of personal computers and powerful accounting software means that bookkeepers can generate financial statements, analysis, and even graphs with a few keystrokes. The time of small business bookkeeping being mere data-entry is long gone (decades gone), but sometimes the popular perception of the job has not quite caught up yet."

To read the rest of the article, click here.

Source: Times-Standard Online