Accountant · Albany, NY · Member since 2026 · 61 posts · 16 votes
It's a common instinct, and I think it's backwards. I'd love to hear if others agree.
A CPA files your return. A bookkeeper makes sure there's something accurate to file. When one person does both once a year, miscodings pile up quietly until April.
Do you keep them separate, or is one person handling both? What's worked for you?
Separate them. A CPA and a bookkeeper do different jobs, and mashing them together is how small errors sit for eleven months and turn into an April cleanup bill.
The bookkeeper's job is monthly: every bank and card account reconciled, rent and PM statements tied to the books, every transaction tagged to the right property, and a per-property P&L you can actually read. That only works if it happens every month, while the receipts are still fresh.
The CPA's job is the return and the planning. A CPA who is also doing the monthly entries is doing it once a year at best, and usually at their hourly rate, which is the most expensive way to get bookkeeping done.
One test: ask whoever handles the books for a clean per-property P&L and a reconciled balance sheet in the middle of the year. If they can produce it in a day, the split is working. If it takes a week of cleanup, it isn't.
That's a valuable distinction, @Rachel Mazzanti. Small errors don't announce themselves; they just sit there accruing until April forces the issue.
By December, reconciliation feels like piecing together a puzzle with half the pieces missing. And paying CPA rates for classification work is the most expensive way to buy bookkeeping.