

It's a truly amazing program, filled with highly approachable and practical learning content, and it's taught for folks who are just getting started, with no background in bookkeeping or accounting. Illumeo recently launched a bookkeeping certification program, built by one of our top instructors. Illumeo Launches Bookkeeping Certification Program It proves that you have gone through some sort of qualification process, and may help you land that first or next bookkeeping job. Getting certified, either with the AIPB or NACPB, can help you stand out in a sea of resumes. However, if you're just starting out in bookkeeping, or if you're trying to set yourself apart from other bookkeepers, the various bookkeeping or technology certifications may be very worth your while as they might enable you to charge more, market your services more effectively, and, in fact, do a better job given deeper training. You likely already have many of the relevant skills, knowledge, and credibility you need to be hired and do your job successfully, and most clients will ask whether you're an accountant or not, but if you're a bookkeeper and they're looking for a bookkeeper, that may be all they need to know - not whether you're a certified bookkeeper. If you're already an experienced bookkeeper, the answer may be "no". Unlike most accounting certifications, the cost and time involved are much lower.īookkeepers also have the option of getting certified in specific software. These certifications don't necessarily prove that the person is a qualified bookkeeper, merely that they're proficient in the software.
NACPB BOOKKEEPING TRAINING REVIEWS PROFESSIONAL
Like most accounting certifications, they also require continuing professional education. These certifications are similar in that they both offer study guides, newsletters, and additional resources. The AIPB, American Institute of Professional Bookkeepers, offers a CB or Certified Bookkeeper designation, as does the NACPB, National Association of Certified Public Bookkeepers.

The courses are supported by very patient experts/professors that you’ll work with through email. Their courses are college courses delivered online through McGraw-Hill. However, there are two recognized bookkeeping certifications. I’ve been taking the entire CAP (certified accounting paraprofessional) licensing course with NACPB for the last 8 months. While there is one gold standard accounting certification in the United States (CPA), there isn't a bookkeeping equivalent. But bookkeepers are a very different story. And you aren't an 'official' accountant without one of those designations, and they take many years of study and many thousands of dollars to attain. As we know, there are numerous types of certifications for accountants around the world, primarily Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) and Chartered Accountants (CAs). Bookkeeping CertificationsĪ big question is whether bookkeepers are as regulated as accountants. They provide guidance and strategy, and help better understand the past and the future of the company. Is it running a few dozen transactions a day? Or more like a few hundred thousand? The more complex, the more skills a bookkeeper needs.Īccountants look at the big picture. They take the data of the bookkeeper and verify it, analyze it, and turn it into understandable information like reports. The complexity of bookkeeping really depends on the size of the organization. Essentially, they generate all the data that accountants will then turn into information. Bookkeeping vs Accountingīookkeepers handle the day-to-day tasks like recording transactions, posting debits and credits, producing invoices, running payroll, and maintaining the general ledger and accounts. If you unchecked an answer that you were supposed to check and visa versa, you were docked a lot of points and sometimes the wording of the answers caused me to make little errors like that, and that type of question wasn't even present on the actual certification exam so it felt unnecessary to have, or if they get formatted different.Īlso, some of the exercises/problems ended up being repetitive in that there wasn't much of a.We've explored the various accounting certifications in the US, Canada, and EU, but we avoided one of the big topics of discussion: bookkeepers. The chapter exercises/problems were a good challenge, but I absolutely hated the "choose more than one answer" questions because of the way you had to select/deselect the choices. I thought the reading material was good and very informative, although with the read-aloud audio I sometimes had technical issues with it in which the audio would just fail and it caused me to waste time in refreshing the page to get the audio to work again. I liked the flexibility of the programs as a "learn-as-you-go" because I got the chance to learn the material at my own pace.
