{"id":3252,"date":"2018-01-05T10:12:35","date_gmt":"2018-01-05T15:12:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sagestaging.wpengine.com\/en-us\/blog\/?post_type=sage_glossary&#038;p=1677"},"modified":"2026-02-16T06:20:54","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T11:20:54","slug":"what-is-bookkeeping","status":"publish","type":"sage_glossary","link":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/glossary\/what-is-bookkeeping\/","title":{"rendered":"What is bookkeeping?"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"entry-header has-dark-background-color entry-header--has-illustration entry-header--has-illustration--generic\">\n\t<div class=\"container\">\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-header__row row align-center\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"col col-lg-7 col-xlg-6 entry-header__content\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"component component-single-header\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"entry-header__misc text--subtitle text--uppercase text--small\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/glossary\/\" class=\"entry-header__link\">Glossary definition<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"entry-title-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<h1 class=\"entry-title\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\tWhat is bookkeeping?\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\t<div class=\"single-post-details container\">\n\t\t<div class=\"col\">\n\t\t\t<span class=\"reading-time\"> min read<\/span>\n\t\t<button\n\t\t\ttype=\"button\"\n\t\t\tclass=\"social-share-button button button--icon button--secondary js-social-share-button\"\n\t\t\tdata-share-title=\"What is bookkeeping?\"\n\t\t\tdata-share-url=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/glossary\/what-is-bookkeeping\/\"\n\t\t\tdata-share-text=\"Please read this interesting article\"\n\t\t>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"social-share-button__share-label\">Share<\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"social-share-button__copy-label\" hidden>Copy Link<\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"social-share-button__copy-tooltip\" aria-hidden=\"true\" hidden>Copied<\/span>\n\t\t<\/button>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/header>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-bookkeeping\">Bookkeeping<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Bookkeeping refers to the process of monitoring the financial transactions of an organization or individual. Colloquially referred to as \u201ckeeping the books,\u201d the process typically involves regulated and systematized parameters for reporting. However, a more general <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/six-signs-bookkeeping\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">bookkeeping<\/a> definition included any process\u2014regardless of the level of sophistication\u2014of recording financial transactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Methods of bookkeeping vary and range from simple to complex. Specifically, maintaining the day to day financial records (such as sales, purchases, payments, receipts) define bookkeeper roles in a company. Using the bookkeeper\u2019s records, a CPA is typically responsible for preparing and analyzing a company\u2019s financial documents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bookkeeping Bookkeeping refers to the process of monitoring the financial transactions of an organization or individual. Colloquially referred to as \u201ckeeping the books,\u201d the process typically involves regulated and systematized parameters for reporting. However, a more general bookkeeping definition included any process\u2014regardless of the level of sophistication\u2014of recording financial transactions. Methods of bookkeeping vary and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":102,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_sage_video":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[2,110],"class_list":["post-3252","sage_glossary","type-sage_glossary","status-publish","hentry","tag-accountants","tag-accounting-101"],"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"Sage Advice US","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/sage_glossary\/3252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/sage_glossary"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/sage_glossary"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/102"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/sage_glossary\/3252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35665,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/sage_glossary\/3252\/revisions\/35665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}