Meaning & use
bookkeeping
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Meanings
noununcountablebusiness
The everyday job of writing down a business's income, spending and other money transactions in an orderly way.
Grammar: Uncountable: bookkeeping is time-consuming; do not say a bookkeeping.
Patterns
- do the bookkeeping
- bookkeeping for a company
- handle bookkeeping
She does the bookkeeping for three small shops.
Careful bookkeeping makes tax season far less stressful.
Our club hired a volunteer to handle the bookkeeping.
noununcountablebusiness
The records themselves, or the system used to keep them.
Grammar: Uncountable; sometimes used as a modifier: a bookkeeping system.
Patterns
- a bookkeeping system
- bookkeeping records
The auditor found errors in the company's bookkeeping.
The old bookkeeping was done by hand in a ledger.
We switched to online bookkeeping software last year.
Common combinations
- do the bookkeeping
- My brother does the bookkeeping for the family restaurant.
- double-entry bookkeeping
- Double-entry bookkeeping records every transaction twice.
- bookkeeping software
- Bookkeeping software saves small firms many hours.
- accurate bookkeeping
- Accurate bookkeeping helps owners spot problems early.
- bookkeeping error
- A bookkeeping error caused the invoice to be paid twice.
- basic bookkeeping
- The course teaches basic bookkeeping for freelancers.
Synonyms and how they differ
- accounting
- Accounting is broader because it also analyzes and reports on the figures, whereas bookkeeping only records them.
- record-keeping
- Record-keeping can cover any kind of information, while bookkeeping is specifically about money.
- ledger work
- Ledger work is an informal, old-fashioned way to describe the tasks of bookkeeping.
- auditing
- Auditing means checking someone else's accounts for accuracy, which is a separate job from recording them.
Word family
- bookkeeper noun
- a person who records a business's transactions
- book noun
- a record of accounts, as in the books
- keep the books phrase
- to maintain a business's financial records
- ledger noun
- the main book in which accounts are recorded
Commonly confused: bookkeeping or accounting?
bookkeeping vs accounting
Accounting goes further than bookkeeping because it interprets and reports the numbers, while bookkeeping only records them.
Practice
The small bakery hired someone to enter every sale and expense into a ledger each week; this job is called ___.
Choose one answer.
Bookkeeping is the routine recording of transactions. Auditing is checking records afterward, and budgeting is planning future spending, so they are tempting but different.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “bookkeeping”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.