"A bookkeeper records the financial transactions of an organization and takes care of day-to-day functions such as recording sales and invoices, paying bills and processing payroll," Stephens said. "Accountants take the financial data and analyze it to help organizations make financial decisions."

You can set up basic small business accounting records in a spreadsheet, though this is more tedious, prone to manual errors, and time consuming than a comprehensive small-business accounting software. At the very least, you'll want to track expenses and income in a secure cloud-based platform.

Small business owners are typically fine doing their own books when they're first starting out. They learn how basic bookkeeping works and save money. But when your business starts growing and bookkeeping tasks start taking up too much time, you should consider hiring a bookkeeper.

Self-taught bookkeepers use a variety of courses, seminars, books, and other online resources to learn about bookkeeping and accounting. You can also learn how to use accounting software, like QuickBooks, which can teach you about the basics of bookkeeping as well as the technology used by many businesses.