How to Differentiate Accounting From Bookkeeping

Series Summary

Accounting in one form or another has been around since the early days of human agriculture and civilization. Accountants are depended upon to keep track of and summarize transactions. Most think of accounting in financial terms. There are other accounting fields to consider like management accounting, open-book accounting and tax accounting. Auditing is also related to the accounting field and consists of external auditors and internal auditors. In this free video series on accounting, an accounting professor explains the basics of accounting and accounting careers. Find out the basic principles of accounting and the different types of accounting. Learn about the job descriptions for financial accountants and certified management accountants. Get information on the average salary of an accountant and job opportunities for accounting majors.

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Shawn Jones the adjunct professsor here at RUC University. Today we're talking about the difference between accounting and bookkeeping. Basically, accounting is the entire process of being able to keep track of a company or organizations financial records. It includes the reporting function, recording of transactions, keeping track of history, payrolls, receivables, payables. Putting all those things together into a package that managers, leaders of various organizations and companies can have access to to understand where their business is at from a financial perspective. Bookkeeping is the specific recording of those transactions, so taking, for example, the recording of an invoice or the recording of a bill, and being able to put that information into a company's financial accounting system. So thus, bookkeeping is the recording of a transaction. Accounting is being able to put all of those transactions together into a report or data that is functional for leaders of organizations to be able to understand their reporting and what is going on within their business. For more information about this topic, please visit our website at argosy.edu. There you can find our phone number or an address to come and visit our Salt Lake City campus."