American Institute of Professional Bookkeepers (AIPB), the bookkeeping profession's association recognizing bookkeeping as a profession and bookkeepers as professionals, and certifying those bookkeepers who meet high, national standards.

Who is Today's “Professional Bookkeeper”?

Answer: Part accountant, part tax whiz, part financial analyst.

Forget about the stereotype recluse with meticulous records and no skills.

Today's professional bookkeeper (as opposed to “bookkeeping clerk”) is expected to know...

that Joe's health insurance is tax-free, but Alice's must have federal income tax and Social Security tax withheld;
that $25,000 of the purchase price of an SUV pickup truck or van may be written off it weighs over 6,000 pounds or weighs less and is “specially modified”—and when these vehicles do (or do not) come under annual IRS depreciation limits;
how much the company v. employee can contribute to Bob's 401(k) and Jane's SIMPLE IRA—and the special rules for including a Roth IRA to a 401(k) starting in 2006;
that when Jill worked 40 hours, then worked all day Saturday—after being specifically ordered not to work—she must be paid overtime
that the free weekend at the company-owned (or paid for) fishing cabin is taxable income to Bill

...and this is the easy stuff.

The list of accounting and tax rules that today's bookkeeper must know is endless.

Which equipment costs can be written off v. depreciated? How do you record an expense that is treated one way on the income statement, another on the tax return? When Joe, your marketer retires, then returns two days a week as a marketing consultant, is he an employee or an independent contractor? (He's an employee and it is dangerous not to pay him as one.)

Today's bookkeeper must know the answers to dozens of questions like these.

Why?

Because, in today's entrepreneurial company, the heart of the American economy and the key to its future job growth, the bookkeeper is the de facto CFO. Even the greatest CPA cannot create strong financial statements from flimsy data. Who cares about a small company's financial statements? The bank making a loan decision. The vendor deciding whether to extend credit. The large corporate customer that cannot roll station-wagons off the assembly line if its steering-wheel supplier goes out of business.

Then there are the entrepreneurs themselves. One catastrophic cashflow projection, one costly worker reclassification (because the IRS decided that your company owes back-Social Security taxes, back retirement plan contributions, back healthcare coverage and back overtime pay plus penalties and interest on 10 employees that your company has been paying as 'independent contractors' for the last five years)) or one missed vendor background check—and soon there is one former entrepreneur.

Just about all of the American Institute of Professional Bookkeepers' 30,000 members have at least one or two of these skills—some bookkeepers understand worker classification (employees v. independent contractors), others, depreciation, still others taxble v. nontaxable benefits or which expenses must be depreciated v. written off. The Certified Bookkeeper (CB) knows all of these areas. We can certify that because every CB has passed three, two-hour national exams at one of 300 Prometric test centers in the U.S. or the 200 or more Prometric test centers worldwide, have at least 2 years' experience must update their knowledge and skills annually by earning and registering 30 continuing professional education credits a year.

Who is today's professional bookkeeper?

The unseen, indestructible force behind America's innovative, old-line and mainstream growth companies. The next time you hear that a start-up company hit it big, you may wonder, “Who's the bookkeeper there?” But don't expect an answer. That's one trade secret so crucial to a small business's success, the owner will ever tell you.