Accountants have higher salary and growth expectations than bookkeepers. To maximize earning potential and secure long-term job stability, it's worth pursuing a career as an accountant.

Bookkeeping is a direct record of all purchases and sales your business conducts, while accounting is a subjective look at what that data means for your business and cash flow strategies. An accountant can be considered a bookkeeper, but a bookkeeper can't be an accountant without proper certification.

Bookkeepers line up all the small pieces of a company's financial records, and accountants view and arrange those pieces. Accounting often requires more education than becoming a bookkeeper, where most accountants hold undergraduate or graduate degrees or even MBAs in accounting, economics, or finance.

Ideally, a bookkeeper and accountant will work together. And of course it's important that you, the business owner, work closely with both of them to keep tabs on the money side of your business, including its current state and the projections for its future financial health.