bookkeeping is a branch of accounting. its the foundation of the accounting discipline and allows accountants do their job. all bookkeeping actually is is pulling reciepts, invoices, purchase orders, confirmation of payment emails and all documented transactions related to the business and organizing it by individual categories and then reporting them on a paper which breaks down where all the money that was spent actually went and how much was left over for you, the owner.

to which you you use either a software like quickbooks to perform this collection and organization of data and then you literally click a couple of buttons to produce any type of report you want of the information gathered. then thats it, you have kept your books. now of course its not as easy as clicking a bunch of bunch buttons you need to know the correct nature of each transaction as it shows up in different forms like receipts, purchase orders, invoices, etc and then how to treat them in the double entry system. software like quickbooks does this if you’ve set up your chart of accounts correctly but its important you do understand that.

so if accountants dont record, organize and report my finances, what the freak do they do?

well past the point of the books being done accounting branches off into tax, audit, management (formerly cost) and foreinsic or government accounting. the only ones that apply to you are tax, audit and management accountants. a tax accountant will help you create a tax plan to minimize your taxes as much as possible. an audit accountant will go over your books with a fine tooth comb and make sure you are compliant with the CRA and other tax collection agencies to make sure nothing in your financials are misrepresented and finally management accountants focus on using the financial data to help the rest of management make data driven, profitable decisions so teh business continues to develop a repeatable, profitable operation. therefore they do lots of analysis things like understanding your break even point, margin of safety, the businesses degree of operating leverage, creating budgets, understanding the businesses sales mix so on and so forth. all of management accounting is centered around understanding every crux of the business and how to optimize it for profit or so that it aligns with teh businesses goals.