Axe ’Em, Jacks!
Earn a bookkeeper certification online
Bookkeeping forms the backbone of every organization's need to carefully account for its financial activities. It accounts for sales, purchases, and payments that flow through an entity. Bookkeepers are crucial to every organization and certified bookkeepers are the elite of their profession. This online course will prepare you for certification by the American Institute of Professional Bookkeepers.
Job Outlook for Bookkeepers
According to PayScale.com, bookkeepers earn on average $17.37 per hour. Top bookkeepers’ earnings exceed $56,900.
CareerBuilder.com cites bookkeeping skills as highly transferable to financial supervisory, analysis, or managerial roles and considered an "ideal choice" for those who are motivated to keep organizations on track with regard to their finances.
Technology is highly relevant to the bookkeeper's role. Mastery of bookkeeping software applications is the key to matching bookkeeping skills with expanding requirements for analysis, visual data presentation, and reporting that provides value-added to the traditional bookkeeper's duties.
Certified Bookkeeper FAQs
What does the bookkeeper role involve?
Bookkeepers serve on the front lines of a person, company or organization's financial health. Strong bookkeepers set up, deploy and manage systems that record the flow of funds into and out of an entity's coffers. Using reporting tools and systems, bookkeepers help individuals and operational managers stay aware of and improve an entity's financial status and performance.
Hasn't technology replaced bookkeepers?
Technology has had a huge impact on the bookkeeping field. However, the bookkeeper's underlying organizational skills and precise attention to detail are as valuable as ever to their employers and clients. Programs like QuickBooks or Microsoft Excel have widely replaced the manual entry functions of traditional bookkeeping. However, the organization, reporting, and use of financial data still rely heavily on human input and processing.
Is certification important for bookkeepers?
Certification in any profession signals to employers, colleagues, and clients that a professional is committed to the highest standards of excellence and accountability. Certified bookkeepers meet the AIPB’s highest standards for financial accounting, business practices and ethical conduct.
Course Objectives
- Prepare to take and pass the American Institute of Professional Bookkeepers certification exam
- Understand eligibility requirements, code of ethics, and maintenance requirements for bookkeeper certification
- Apply the concepts of accrual accounting to transactions that span fiscal periods and trace the effect of accrual and deferral transactions
- Record book and tax depreciation, using various methods of calculating depreciation
- Perform basic payroll duties, including paying wages, handling payroll deposits, and reporting taxes
- Know how to value inventory, record costs, make entries and report inventory on financial statements
- Use basic internal controls to prevent theft, embezzlement, or check and credit card fraud by employees, customers, or vendors
Prerequisites
This course is designed for experienced bookkeepers with at least two years of work experience in bookkeeping or accounting.
Curriculum
Becoming a Certified Bookkeeper
Eligibility requirements, code of ethics and certification maintenance
Accruals, Deferrals and the Adjusted Trial Balance
Why accruals, deferrals, and other adjustments are made; and recognizing revenues collected in advance and expenses after a prepayment
Correction of Accounting Errors and the Bank Reconciliation
When and where accounting errors occur and how they are discovered; and finding and correcting errors on the unadjusted trial balance
Payroll
How to pay different types of employees; federal and state wage-hour law
Depreciation
The difference between book and tax depreciation; and depreciation under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, or GAAP
Inventory
General concepts of accounting for inventory; and the perpetual, periodic, FIFO and LIFO methods
Internal Controls and Fraud Depreciation
How to prevent or spot theft of inventory and other non-cash assets by employees; and preventing employee theft, embezzlement or fraud by hiring the right personnel