The short version
A bookkeeper's job is to keep your financial records accurate, organized, and current so you (and your CPA) can use them. Specifically, that means:
- Categorizing every transaction that hits your accounts
- Reconciling bank, credit card, and other financial accounts every month
- Tracking what customers owe you and what you owe vendors
- Running or supporting payroll
- Producing monthly financial reports (P&L, Balance Sheet, sometimes Cash Flow)
- Handing clean books to your CPA at tax time
What a bookkeeper is not: a tax preparer, a financial advisor, or a CFO. Those are different roles done by different people.
The daily and weekly tasks
Even though most bookkeepers don't literally work on your books every day, the recurring small-cadence work matters:
- Categorizing bank feed transactions. Modern accounting software pulls in transactions from your bank and credit card accounts. Each one needs to be reviewed and assigned to the right expense or income account.
- Recording invoices and bills. Customer invoices you send and vendor bills you receive need to be entered into the accounting system as they happen.
- Sending payment reminders. Customers who haven't paid by the due date get a polite reminder.
- Filing supporting documents. Receipts, contracts, statements — all get filed in a way that can be referenced later.
For a small business with average transaction volume, this is typically 1–3 hours per week of work.
The monthly close
This is the work that turns a pile of transactions into actual financial statements. Every month, your bookkeeper should:
Reconcile every account
Bank accounts, credit cards, lines of credit, loans, merchant accounts — anything with a financial balance gets matched to its statement. The ending balance in the books must equal the ending balance on the statement, with every transaction accounted for.
Review and adjust
Anything that looks unusual gets investigated. Miscategorizations get fixed. Duplicates get removed. Accruals (if applicable) get posted.
Handle A/R and A/P
Accounts Receivable aging is reviewed for old balances. Accounts Payable is reviewed for upcoming due dates. Both are reconciled to the General Ledger.
Run payroll-related entries
Payroll runs from your payroll provider are recorded in the books, reconciled against the provider's reports, and payroll liability accounts are confirmed.
Track sales tax
Sales tax collected is tracked as a liability. If you're on monthly filing, the return is prepared and submitted (or coordinated with you for submission). See our Florida sales tax guide for more.
Close the books and produce reports
A closing date is set so the period can't be edited. Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet (and often a few other custom reports) are produced and sent to you with any notes worth flagging.
For a typical small business, the monthly close takes 4–10 hours of bookkeeper time, finished within the first two weeks of the following month.
The quarterly tasks
- Estimated tax coordination. Calculating or supporting the calculation of quarterly estimated tax payments, coordinated with your CPA.
- Payroll tax filings. Form 941 (federal payroll tax) and Florida Reemployment Tax filings — typically handled by your payroll provider but verified by the bookkeeper.
- Sales tax filings for businesses on quarterly sales tax filing.
- Quarter-over-quarter review. Pulling comparative reports and flagging trends worth discussing.
The annual tasks
Year-end is when bookkeeping intersects with tax filing.
- Final reconciliations for the year — every account brought current through December 31.
- 1099-NEC preparation for contractors paid $600+ during the year.
- W-2 reconciliation against payroll reports.
- Year-end adjustments — depreciation, accruals, prepaid expenses, inventory.
- Year-end financial package for your CPA: P&L, Balance Sheet, Trial Balance, supporting reports.
- Annual report filing with the Florida Division of Corporations (or coordination with you on doing it yourself).
Our year-end bookkeeping checklist has the full task list.
What bookkeepers don't do
Just as important as knowing what bookkeepers do is knowing what they don't:
They don't file your tax return
Tax preparation and filing is a CPA, EA, or tax preparer's role. Bookkeepers produce the financial statements that tax preparers use as input. They generally don't sign returns or give tax advice.
They don't make financial decisions for you
A bookkeeper can show you that marketing is 15% of revenue this quarter vs. 10% last quarter. They generally won't tell you whether to cut the marketing budget — that's a business decision the owner makes, sometimes with input from a CPA, fractional CFO, or advisor.
They don't typically pay your bills
Recording bills is bookkeeping; actually sending money to vendors is usually the owner's decision. Some bookkeepers offer bill pay as an add-on service (we do), but it's separate from standard monthly bookkeeping.
They don't give legal or insurance advice
If the question is "should I be an LLC or an S-Corp?" or "what insurance do I need?", that's not a bookkeeping question. It's a CPA, attorney, or insurance broker question.
They don't run your business
Bookkeeping is a function that supports the business, not one that runs it. Your bookkeeper shouldn't be making operational decisions for you.
What good bookkeeping looks like in practice
If your bookkeeping is working well, here's what you should be experiencing:
- You get a P&L and Balance Sheet within 10–14 days of month-end, every month
- You can ask "what did we spend on [X] last quarter?" and get an answer within a day
- You have a clear point of contact at the bookkeeping firm (or one in-house person)
- Tax season is paperwork, not a crisis
- You're not opening QuickBooks yourself except to look up specific questions
- You have time to do things that grow the business instead of categorizing receipts
If two or more of those are missing, something is off — either with your bookkeeper or with the level of service you're paying for.
How bookkeepers price their work
Most bookkeeping is priced one of three ways:
- Hourly — common for one-off projects or very small clients
- Flat monthly fee — most common for ongoing engagements; you know what you're paying every month
- Value-based or tiered — used by some firms for higher-touch engagements
For Florida small businesses, ongoing monthly bookkeeping typically falls between $300 and $1,500 per month, with one-time cleanup projects priced separately. See our bookkeeping cost guide for the longer breakdown.
Frequently asked questions
QuickBooks is a tool, not a bookkeeper. The software can automate data entry and reconciliation steps, but it still needs someone to make sure transactions are categorized correctly, accounts are actually reconciled (not just matched), and reports are produced. Most businesses use both: software + a person to operate it.
Bookkeepers handle the day-to-day financial record-keeping. Accountants (and CPAs) handle higher-level work like tax filing, audits, and advisory. The two roles work together. Our piece on bookkeeper vs. accountant vs. CPA goes deeper.
Indirectly, yes. A bookkeeper gives you accurate financial information that lets you make better decisions. They generally don't do strategic planning themselves, but they make strategic planning possible by producing reliable numbers.
For full-service bookkeeping, your bookkeeper typically needs read-only access to your bank accounts, accounting software access (often as a non-admin user), and document sharing for receipts and statements. They should not have signing authority on your bank accounts or the ability to move money without your approval.
How we help
SoFlo360 provides outsourced bookkeeping for Florida small businesses. Monthly close, payroll support, AP/AR management, sales tax tracking, and clean handoffs to your CPA — that's the work. Spanish-friendly support available.