Someone asked this exact question in one of our Being a Good Treasurer webinars recently:
What’s the difference between a bookkeeper, an accountant, and a treasurer?
It’s a good question, because the three often get bundled together. Small charities sometimes hire an accountant when what they really need is bookkeeping help, or expect their volunteer treasurer to somehow do all three jobs.
A good way to think about it is:
Bookkeeping and accounting are types of financial work. Treasurer is a role within your organisation.
In this guide:
Bookkeeping is the day-to-day keeping of your books — literally.
A bookkeeper will usually help with things like:
In short, bookkeeping is about making sure the underlying records are accurate and up to date.
There are bookkeeping qualifications and professional associations, but many small organisations also do some or all of this work themselves. It might be done by the treasurer, another volunteer, a staff member, or an external bookkeeper.
Accounting generally starts with those bookkeeping records and takes things a step further.
An accountant might help with:
For registered charities in Aotearoa, this might include helping prepare your annual reporting in line with standards issued by the External Reporting Board (XRB).
Some accountants focus mostly on year-end reporting and compliance. Others work much more closely with organisations throughout the year.
And while anyone can use the word accountant fairly broadly, Chartered Accountant is a professional designation with specific qualification and membership requirements.
A treasurer is a little different.
Treasurer describes a role within your organisation, rather than a particular technical skill.
The treasurer usually helps the board or committee keep oversight of the organisation’s money.
That means understanding both:
A treasurer might do the bookkeeping themselves. They might work with an external bookkeeper. They might bring in an accountant at year-end.
But they don’t necessarily need to be a bookkeeper or an accountant themselves.
We think of the treasurer as the person who helps bring together an understanding of the money and an understanding of the organisation, so the board or committee can make good decisions.
That might mean helping people understand:
The treasurer isn’t solely responsible for those decisions. Financial responsibility sits with the whole board or committee.
But the treasurer has an important role in making sure the money story is clear enough for everyone else to understand.
There is plenty of overlap between these roles.
A bookkeeper wants the records to be accurate. An accountant wants the financial information to be correctly prepared and reported. A treasurer should care about both of those things too.
But the treasurer is usually looking at the numbers with another question in mind:
What does this mean for our organisation?
Accurate records and correct reporting matter. They help you stay registered, meet your obligations and remain in control of your money.
But they aren’t the end goal.
You can have beautifully prepared year-end accounts and still have a committee that has no idea how much money it can safely spend next month.
A good treasurer helps close that gap.
These are useful general distinctions, not strict rules.
Plenty of bookkeepers know their clients’ organisations extremely well and provide support well beyond basic bookkeeping. Many accountants work closely with charities throughout the year and genuinely want to help them run well.
And some treasurers are accountants or experienced bookkeepers themselves and happily do much of the technical work too.
One useful difference is that an external bookkeeper or accountant will often work with lots of different organisations. A volunteer treasurer is usually much closer to the day-to-day life of one organisation.
That organisational knowledge matters.
An accountant might know how a grant needs to be reported. The treasurer should also understand why the grant exists, what the organisation promised to do with it, and whether the organisation is actually on track.
Not necessarily. For a small organisation, one person might cover more than one of these functions. You could have:
So rather than asking:
“Do we need a bookkeeper, an accountant and a treasurer?”
A better question is:
“What work needs to be done, and who is the right person to do each part?”
Someone needs to keep the records up to date. Someone needs to make sure your reporting obligations are met. And your board or committee needs someone helping it understand what the numbers mean for the organisation.
That last part is where the treasurer role really matters.
Ask Duncan anything — big or small. He’ll get back to you ASAP, and your questions will help improve the information here for everyone.
