“With a staffing footprint of only a few attorneys why do I need a bookkeeper?” It’s a question I’ve heard a lot over the course of my career. Many lawyers who work in small firms don’t see the benefit of relying on external expertise to keep their books organized. Unfortunately, many of those same lawyers eventually come around to a different way of thinking only after something bad, or even catastrophic, happens with their accounts.
Let’s say that you’ve already got an accountant. You may wonder why you would also need a bookkeeper. Don’t they do the same thing? Isn’t an accountant an upgraded version of a bookkeeper?
In a word, no. Bookkeepers and accountants, while they both work with your books and finances, perform very different tasks. Read on below to find out why, even though you’ve already got an accountant, you still need a bookkeeper!
You see, whether someone is an independent contractor or an employee is a legal determination based on the circumstances of their engagement with the firm they work with. It has nothing to do, or at least very little to do, with how their firm has decided to label them. There are hundreds, if not thousands of reported cases elucidating the different circumstances of contractors and employees.
