They do different jobs, most small companies eventually need both, and the order matters more than the label. Here is the difference in practice, not in theory.
A bookkeeper records what happened. A transaction arrives, it gets coded, the bank gets reconciled, the VAT return gets prepared. It's continuous work, usually monthly.
An accountant takes those records and produces something from them: statutory accounts for Companies House, a Corporation Tax return for HMRC, advice on a decision. It's usually periodic, and often annual.
| Bookkeeper | Accountant | |
|---|---|---|
| Main job | Recording transactions accurately | Reporting, compliance and advice |
| Frequency | Weekly or monthly | Annually, plus ad hoc |
| Typically covers | Coding, bank reconciliation, sales and purchase ledger, VAT returns, often payroll | Statutory accounts, Corporation Tax, Self Assessment, tax planning |
| Qualification | Often AAT, ICB or IAB. Not legally required | Usually ICAEW, ACCA or CIMA. "Accountant" is not a protected title |
| Typical cost | £15–£35 an hour, or £100–£400 a month fixed | Annual fee for accounts and tax return |
| What breaks without them | You don't know where you are | You miss filing deadlines and pay the wrong tax |
In the UK, anyone can call themselves an accountant or a bookkeeper. There's no legal qualification requirement for either.
What is a legal requirement is anti-money laundering supervision. Anyone providing bookkeeping or accountancy services in business must be supervised, either by a professional body or by HMRC directly. That's the floor, and it's worth checking.
Above that floor, the letters tell you what someone was trained to do:
Bookkeeping, almost always. Accounts and tax returns are built from the underlying records. If the records are wrong, everything produced from them is wrong — and neither Companies House nor HMRC is interested in whose fault that was.
A modestly-priced accountant working from accurate books produces a better outcome than an expensive one working from a carrier bag of receipts, because most of what you're paying the expensive one for is the reconstruction.
The order people commonly get wrong: appointing an accountant, doing the books themselves badly for eleven months, and then paying that accountant to fix a year's worth of coding at professional rates. If that's already happened, catch-up and cleanup is usually cheaper as a defined job than as year-end overtime.
There's a third thing, and it's the one that actually changes decisions.
Bookkeeping tells you what happened. Statutory accounts tell HMRC and Companies House what happened, roughly ten months after the year they describe. Management accounts tell you what's happening now — monthly profit and loss, balance sheet, and the commentary explaining why the numbers moved.
Most small companies have the first and the second and not the third, which is why so many owners can file perfectly compliant accounts and still not know whether last month was any good. It's also the distinction CIMA exists for.
Often, yes — but the edges differ between firms, and the mistake is assuming rather than asking.
Most small companies need four things: bookkeeping and VAT, management accounts, year-end statutory accounts, and Corporation Tax. Plenty of firms cover all four. Where practices genuinely diverge is on the personal and specialist side — Self Assessment, groups, R&D claims, capital gains, and tax planning — which are frequently referred out even by firms that do everything else.
So the useful question isn't "bookkeeper or accountant". It's which of those four you're buying, from whom, and what's left uncovered.
If you're weighing the cost, our bookkeeping prices guide sets out what UK firms actually charge, and the cost calculator works out what your current arrangement costs — including doing it yourself.
Seven questions you can answer from memory — no logins, no exports. An honest verdict on whether your figures can be relied on, before we ask you for anything.
Run the free Books Check → Or book a 30-minute initial review