Learn bookkeeping with online courses and programs

Businesses maintain financial records to pay bills, calculate taxes, and more. Learn bookkeeping with online courses delivered through edX.

Bookkeeping | Introduction Image Description

What is bookkeeping?

Bookkeeping is the practice of recording and tracking all the financial transactions of a business. Bookkeepers can summarize those records for stakeholders, invoice contractors, prepare tax returns, and pay bills.

Professionals in this field may be self-employed practitioners or work at bookkeeping firms that sell services to businesses including, but not limited to basic record keeping, tax return filing, and business strategy.

Some additional tasks that may fall under a bookkeeper’s role include:

Data entry
Calculating pay and deductions
Bank reconciliation
Accounts payable
Training staff to maintain financial records
End-of-year financial reporting

Capturing detailed financial records enables businesses to save time and resources when leaders need to measure profitability or perform an audit. Bookkeepers also help businesses strategize by providing accurate indicators of measurable success, and make filing taxes quicker and easier.^{Footnote 1}

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Bookkeeping course curriculum

Taking a bookkeeping course can introduce learners to the principles used in the practice. An online course may be complementary to a larger study in accounting or to coursework on entrepreneurship. There are many reasons a learner could benefit from understanding bookkeeping skills.

An introductory course in bookkeeping may cover some of the following topics:

Types of business transactions and how to document them
Double-entry bookkeeping systems
Banking process and transactions
Managing and calculating payroll
Maintaining ledger accounts
Understanding bank reconciliations

Explore bookkeeping jobs

A bookkeeper’s responsibilities will depend on the individual’s experience, education, and the industry they work in. For example, someone with a bachelor’s degree can work as an in-house bookkeeper for a company. They could be part of a team and handle a subset of the overall bookkeeping workload. For a smaller business, they might be the only bookkeeper on staff.

An individual with a master’s degree may be qualified to take on more advanced bookkeeping jobs that include strategy and leadership. Someone with an advanced degree could also be interested in founding their own bookkeeping firm and contracting out employees to other businesses.

Alternatively, learners who want to acquire bookkeeping skills quickly and for a specific purpose may find boot camps most useful. This could include someone who already holds a role in a business that needs to implement bookkeeping.

Other careers also include bookkeeping responsibilities, such as:

Accountant
Accounts receivable analyst
Office assistant
Payroll processing manager
Budget analyst
Chief financial officer

Just because an individual has bookkeeping experience or knowledge, does not mean they are qualified for any career that includes bookkeeping tasks. Careers like accounting and analysis may require specific degrees or training.

How to become a bookkeeper online

Becoming a bookkeeper will involve combining many different kinds of skills: finance, record keeping, technology, data management, and communication. There is no one path for learners to build this knowledge base.

For example, a bachelor’s degree in business can be tailored to many different professions. It could include coursework in accounting, business communication, and finance. Alternatively, an advanced degree in the same field, such as an online MBA, might focus more on business strategy and advanced accounting.

A boot camp in data analytics, or a topic such as fintech or technology project management could also complement an educational background in business and help learners round out their skill set.

The AIPB certificate, or American Institute of Professional Bookkeepers, is a certificate bookkeepers can obtain to show their professional expertise. A Certified Bookkeeper (CB) designation illustrates that the individual has advanced bookkeeping skills.

According to the AIPB, bookkeepers report that certification helped them gain new clients, job interviews, and raise their rates.^{Footnote 2}

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Frequently asked questions

What is the job of a bookkeeper?

A bookkeeper is responsible for recording, tracking, and maintaining the financial transactions of a business. This may also include preparing financial reports, filing taxes, resolving bank reconciliations, and calculating pay. A bookkeeper could also be involved in helping create the financial strategy of a business.

What skills are required for a bookkeeper?

Successful bookkeeping requires a combination of industry, economic, and technological skills. Bookkeepers use software and spreadsheets to maintain databases and enter data. They also produce reports that are relevant and comprehensive of the business’s financial needs. This requires both strong mathematical and communication skills.^{Footnote 3}

Can you learn bookkeeping online?

Bookkeeping skills can be learned online in a myriad of ways. An online bachelor’s degree in business or accounting or a master’s degree in business administration are just a few examples of paths available for online learners. Additionally, online short courses and boot camps are available to learn bookkeeping skills such as data analysis, finance, account management, and business communication.

What is the difference between bookkeeping and accounting?

The terms “bookkeeping” and “accounting” are interchangeable to a degree, but there is a difference. Bookkeeping is the recording of financial transactions, whereas accounting is more complex, including creating a general ledger and financial statements, classifying transactions, creating and managing a budget, filing taxes, and instituting financial controls.

What are the principles of bookkeeping?

The two primary principles of bookkeeping are that every debit must have a corresponding credit and all accounts must balance. These principles ensure accurate and detailed financial reports regarding a business’s financial state.

Is bookkeeping difficult to learn?

Whether bookkeeping is difficult to learn will be dependent on each individual’s prior educational experience and their motivation for the topic. Someone with a background in computer science and math may find data management and balancing of responsibilities easier, while business reports and financial principles could be more difficult. Alternatively, a learner with a business background could have a more difficult time understanding the mathematical aspects of bookkeeping.