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Bookkeeping is the practice of recording, storing and retrieving financial records either for an individual, a corporate enterprise, or a non-profit organization. Almost all companies must practice proper bookkeeping to keep track of their business transactions.

Before I proceed to talk more about bookkeeping, it is essential to digress a little and explain the difference between a bookkeeper and an accountant. Most people do not know the difference between the two.

Bookkeepers fall under the umbrella of accounting, and their main focus is on the day-to-day financial operations of the company, such as recording income and expenses. You do not need to have a degree in accounting or a CPA certification to work as a bookkeeper.

Accounting
, on the other hand, requires you to have a degree plus a CPA certification. An accountant is in charge of the overall financial direction of the company. They deal with the company budget, tax information, and they also prepare the financial statements following the standard accounting practices.

Now, as much as the job of a bookkeeper requires a high level of accuracy and very close attention to details, it has fewer responsibilities compared to accounting.

Yes. If you love working with numbers, i.e., you enjoy figures and are detail oriented, then, bookkeeping could be your ultimate work from home job. It is an excellent way of making money, plus it will allow you the freedom you have been craving.

Getting started is also easy, and all you need is a computer and an internet connection, but you must be familiar with some bookkeeping software and how it works to do an excellent job for your clients.

Learning the ropes of bookkeeping may take some time, but as I mentioned earlier, if you are good with numbers, you will get the hang of it pretty soon.

In most companies, bookkeeping is a back-office position. You are to be heard and not seen. And this is the reason why a bookkeeper can work from home and doesn’t necessarily require to work in an office set up.

Once you have received your training – I shall give you the steps of becoming a bookkeeper in a while. So, once you are trained, you can go online and work with different companies, until you identify the niche you are interested in. Almost all companies require bookkeepers.

The type of work a bookkeeper does include;

• Management of the accounts payable.
• Management of the accounts receivable.
• Maintenance of the general ledger.
• Management of inventory accounts.
• Overseeing the company payroll.
• Monitoring the budget for different projects.
• Filing an accounting report.
• Paying the suppliers and follow up of the purchase orders.
• Management and monitoring the petty cash.

As we mentioned earlier, this is a job that doesn’t require a degree or a CPA qualification, but if you want to do a good job, and are considering bookkeeping as a career, there is training involved to make you good at it.

In addition, if you have a degree in mathematics, accounting or business, or you have been balancing your family's business books, or, you have worked before as a store manager, you definitely have the foundation for a bookkeeping career.

However, if you have none of the above qualifications, there are steps you can take to get you up to speed and get started.

To start off, if you do not have any experience, you can start here, with this free online course. Learn the basics of bookkeeping. Most bookkeeping courses, such as the one linked above takes only a few days, and they include training on the various accounting software such as Xero, Quicken, Sage 50 and Quick Books.

If you have worked before as a bookkeeper and have been out of work for a while, do not worry about it, most of the standard accepted accounting practices have remained the same for a while, which means that you shall be able to get back and continue from where you left off.

Other qualities you need to possess include;

• You must be highly organized.
• You must have strong attention to details, and have the practice of…