Bookkeeping Skills for the New & Seasoned Business Owners

What is Bookkeeping?

Bookkeeping is a fundamental part of any business’s financial operations. Without the professionals who have the skills to be dependable bookkeepers, many businesses would flounder. As a bookkeeping professional, you help maintain the financial consistency and stability of a business on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Responsible for all financial transactions of a business, you help ensure compliance with state and Federal regulations. With accuracy, you calculate, post, and verify financial data and oversee transactions to support business operations.

As a bookkeeper, it is your responsibility to be reliable, dependable, and organized in supporting a business’s financial growth and stability; proficient numeracy skills and knowledge in bookkeeping software and reporting is essential for success. Whether as a business owner or as a professional hired to handle bookkeeping for a business, those who have the following blend of soft and hard skills can expect to thrive in bookkeeping services:

• Customer Service
• Continuous Learning
• Proficiency in Bookkeeping software
• Numeracy
• Reliability & Dependability
• Reporting
• Organization

You can read more about each essential skill in our 2022 blog post, 7 Essential Bookkeeping Skills. Even though bookkeeping is similar to accounting, the key difference is bookkeeping is about recording financial data while accounting is about analyzing financial data. It is important to note that a bookkeeper, while classified as an accounting professional, has very different responsibilities from a professional like Certified Public Accountant (CPA); CPA’s work for larger corporations, including public accounting firms, government agencies, and nonprofit/nongovernmental organizations through state licensing. Bookkeepers typically stick to working with small to medium sized businesses and bookkeeping skills can be valuable for those who freelance or have their own business. Read more about the differences between the professions here: Jumpstart your Bookkeeping Career.

Bookkeeping for New & Seasoned Business Owners

For those who own their own business or operate/manage a small business, having essential bookkeeping skills is key in order to have successful and thriving operations. Think about the amount of financial data just a few transactions with a customer has: invoice data, payroll data, transaction records, and in turn, turn into a slew of financial statements. Without the knowledge and skills to keep all of that data and statements organized and recorded, business owners are bound to struggle with keeping their business financially stable. 

Based on the operations of a business, there are two types of accounting methods that, as bookkeepers, will help best manage financial information: cash-based account and accrual-based accounting. To learn more about each, Forbes Advisor has two articles that describe the differences well: Small Business Bookkeeping (2023 Guide) and Cash vs. Accrual Accounting: What’s the Difference?. No matter the method and type of business being operated, new and seasoned business owners need to have the essential skills to perform bookkeeping tasks as it is important to organize financial data for government regulation, budgeting, decision making, and tracking profit/growth.

Advancing or Jumpstarting Bookkeeping Skills

Maintaining expenditures, receipts, accounts payable, accounts receivable, performing reconciliations, and quarterly tax filings in specialized software and databases requires a specific level of expertise that can be enhanced with a QuickBooks Bookkeeper certification. Our Quickbooks Bookkeeper Certificate program offers you the opportunity to further develop, refine, and enhance your proficiency with industry experts. Students who complete the program can walk away with fundamental knowledge in using Microsoft Excel for data analysis, utilize QuickBooks Online to manage a small business, run reports, and prepare financial statements, and have the skills required to apply to become an Intuit QuickBooks ProAdvisor.

Speak to a student advisor in an upcoming info session to learn more about how our QuickBooks Bookkeeper Certificate program can help you advance or jumpstart your bookkeeping career and skills.