Bookkeeping and its relationship to accounting

Bookkeeping can be seen as the art of recording the financial operations of any project or establishment in its books and extracting its results in accordance with the principles of accounting, that is, the art of recording various physical transactions, according to the systems drawn by accounting, in general, the accounting process includes three things:

1. Identify and analyze events and transactions.
2. Recording, tabulating and summarizing financial events and transactions (bookkeeping).
3. Financial reporting.

Thus, the bookkeeper is the person entrusted with the implementation of methods and procedures in accordance with the rules and guidelines set by the accountant, and his role in accounting is an executive role.

Accounting: The process of recording and analyzing financial data and interpreting its results and preparing these results in the form of financial reports to benefit economic decision makers in making their best decisions, while bookkeeping is limited to recording financial statements only. From the previous definitions, the definition of accounting is more general and comprehensive than the definition of bookkeeping.

Forms of bookkeeping

Bookkeeping is usually done in two forms: the manual form of documents, files and books, and the manual bookkeeping system. The electronic form is the use of the computer to carry out bookkeeping activity. In this case, it is called the electronic bookkeeping system. It should be noted here that the stages of the bookkeeping system do not affect the stages or operations of the data carried out by the system, meaning that there is no change or change in these stages nor the rules or principles and concepts governing the operation during these stages, The electronic system to integrate some processes and not cancel them, the stage of registration and deportation may be carried out in one process in the electronic system, while in a separate manner in the manual system, and the shift from the use of manual system to the electronic system is only to take advantage of technological development in the completion of stages of operation With the aim of speed, accuracy and reduced operating cost.

Accounting data cycle

We have already explained that there are two basic bookkeeping systems, which are distinguished by the means used. Since the bookkeeping system was previously on the electronic system, so its art is more detailed in terms of procedures and steps, thus, the accountant’s understanding of the manual system is an indispensable necessity.

The manual bookkeeping system works through the completion of a number of stages or steps, which are referred to as the cycle of operating accounting data. This course is divided into the following stages:

1. Create data
2. Data recording
3. Data processing
4. Reports preparation
5. Data connection
6. Data storage