The scope of a bookkeeper’s duties and responsibilities depend on the size of the business organization or establishment, and the way its accounting operation is set up. In a larger organization the bookkeeping function is generally split up into different areas of accounting, such as accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll, general ledger, and possibly fixed assets or property. In this type of environment, a bookkeeper will generally have a clerical or accounting position, and will specialize in a certain aspect of bookkeeping. In a smaller establishment, there may be just one full-charge bookkeeper, with much broader duties and responsibilities, who basically takes care of all the operation’s financial activities. These two different scenarios – accounting clerk or full-charge bookkeeper – create different work environments and require different sets of abilities, training, and experience.

What Does a Bookkeeper Do?
A bookkeeper working as a clerk in the accounting department of a large organization or establishment generally works with business documents and information systems - entering data, reviewing reports, assembling and organizing documentation, and maintaining electronic and physical files. The bookkeeper, or accounting clerk, is generally the person responsible for the original entry of data on business transactions into the accounting system. These books of entry include the purchases and sales journals, the cash receipts and disbursements journals, the payroll register, and the general journal where entries are made to capitalize construction project costs, record depreciation, amortize prepaid charges such as insurance, and accrue expenses that have been incurred but not yet paid or invoiced. In addition to entering financial data in the original books of entry, the bookkeeper also reviews reports that are output from the system, to verify the accuracy and completeness with which the business transactions were recorded.

The bookkeeper or accounting clerk may have other duties including generating checks, getting signatures on checks, mailing out checks to vendors, checking the incoming mail, logging in checks received, preparing bank deposits, ordering office supplies, maintaining files of invoices with their supporting documentation and check copies, reconciling statements received from vendors to the accounts payable subledger, reconciling customer statements to the accounts receivable aging report, doing bank reconciliations, and dealing with customers, vendors, and other parties on the telephone, to answer their questions, provide them the information they need, or to resolve issues.

In an accounting department in which the di...