The purpose for both is keeping track of your company's income and how it spends that money. Bookkeeping is the day-to-day record keeping such as managing the receiving and payment of bills, managing the sales and receiving of payment from customers, and payroll processing. Accounting is the next step after bookkeeping. It starts where bookkeeping left off: Reviewing the bookkeeping processing, completing bank reconciliation, credit card reconciliation, completing payroll tax returns, sales tax returns, property tax returns, and compiling the periodic financial reports that summarize all of the record-keeping data.