The one-sentence version
A bookkeeper keeps the records. A CPA is a licensed accountant who can interpret those records, prepare and sign tax returns, represent you before the IRS, and perform audits and reviews.
Both matter. The question is who should be doing which job for your business, and whether it's worth having a CPA do both.
What a bookkeeper does
- Records income and expenses in accounting software
- Categorizes transactions to the chart of accounts
- Reconciles bank and credit card statements
- Sends invoices and records payments
- Enters bills and tracks what's owed
- Runs basic reports: profit & loss, balance sheet
There's no license or exam required to call yourself a bookkeeper. Certifications exist (QuickBooks ProAdvisor, AIPB Certified Bookkeeper), but they're optional. Quality varies enormously, which is why "my bookkeeper messed up my books" is the most common reason businesses call us.
What a CPA does
A Certified Public Accountant has:
- A bachelor's degree plus 150 semester hours of education, including specific accounting coursework
- Passed all four sections of the Uniform CPA Examination
- Completed at least one year of supervised experience
- Been licensed by a state board (in Florida, the Board of Accountancy under DBPR)
- Ongoing continuing education requirements (80 hours every two years in Florida)
- Legal and ethical obligations enforceable by the state
CPAs can prepare and sign tax returns, represent clients before the IRS, perform audits, reviews, and compilations, and provide advisory services. Most CPAs in small business practice focus on tax.
What a CPA doesn't usually do: your monthly books
Here's the gap. Most CPA firms don't want to do monthly bookkeeping. It's lower-margin than tax work, and tax season leaves no time for it. So they either refer you to a bookkeeper, or they "clean up" your books once a year when preparing your return and bill you hourly for it.
That annual cleanup is where small businesses lose money. You pay your CPA $150–$300 an hour to fix categorization errors that a bookkeeper should have caught in March. You get no useful financial information all year. And if there's a problem (a missed sales tax filing, a growing credit card balance, an employee misclassified as a contractor), you find out in April.
What "CPA-led bookkeeping" means
CPA-led bookkeeping is monthly bookkeeping where a licensed CPA does or directly reviews the work. The practical differences:
Categorization with tax in mind. A CPA knows that meals are 50% deductible, that a $2,400 laptop can usually be expensed under the de minimis safe harbor, and that an owner's health insurance in an S corp has to run through payroll. Those decisions happen correctly in the month they occur, not retroactively.
Balance sheet literacy. Bookkeepers tend to focus on the P&L. CPAs are trained to read the balance sheet, which is where hidden problems live: negative undeposited funds, payroll liabilities that don't match the provider, loans that don't tie to the lender's statement.
Statements that survive scrutiny. When a bank, a buyer, or your tax preparer reviews your financials, CPA-prepared books get fewer questions.
Someone to ask. "Should this be a loan or a contribution?" "Can I deduct this?" "Why is my cash down when my profit is up?" A CPA can answer. A bookkeeper often can't.
What it costs
In Jacksonville, a non-credentialed bookkeeper charges $40–$90 per hour or $250–$600 per month flat. CPA-led bookkeeping typically runs 10–25% more at the same volume. Our monthly service starts at $295; see the price calculator for your estimate.
Which one do you need?
- Under $50k revenue, very few transactions: You can likely do it yourself with QuickBooks and a quarterly check-in.
- $50k–$250k revenue: A good bookkeeper monthly, a CPA at tax time. Or CPA-led bookkeeping if your situation has complexity (S corp, inventory, payroll).
- $250k–$5M revenue: CPA-led bookkeeping pays for itself. You need accurate monthly financials to run the business, and the tax-prep savings offset most of the cost difference.
- Over $5M: You're approaching the point where an in-house controller makes sense, often alongside outsourced CPA review.
One more distinction: "accountant"
"Accountant" isn't a protected title in Florida. Anyone can use it. "CPA" is protected: using it without a license is a violation of Florida Statute 473. When a firm says they're CPA-led, you can verify the license on the DBPR license lookup. Ours is listed on our about page.
Questions about which fits your business? Contact us for a 20-minute call. No pitch, just an honest recommendation.