Owners often ask for an accountant when they need a bookkeeper, hire a bookkeeper and expect tax advice, or pay for CFO-level work when the real problem is that the books are six months behind. The three roles overlap at the edges and the titles get used loosely. This page sets out what each one does, when a business needs each, and how we combine them.
The short version: a bookkeeper records what happened, an accountant reports it and handles the tax and structure, and a virtual CFO uses the numbers to decide what happens next. Each one builds on the one before. A forecast built on unreconciled books is a guess, and a tax return prepared from a messy Xero file is expensive to get right.
The confusion is understandable. Plenty of bookkeepers call themselves accountants, some accountants offer CFO services that amount to a quarterly chat, and the lines between them are drawn by regulation in some places and by habit in others. It is worth knowing where the real lines are before you pay for any of them.
It also matters for cost. Paying an accountant to do bookkeeping is expensive. Paying a bookkeeper to make structural decisions is risky. Paying for a CFO when the real need is a clean Xero file is wasteful. Matching the job to the role is the cheapest way to run a finance function at any size.
A bookkeeper keeps the transactions current. In a modern Brisbane business that means the Xero bank feeds are reconciled, sales invoices are raised and chased, supplier bills are entered and paid on time, payroll is processed and reported through STP, and super is calculated and paid. A good bookkeeper also keeps the chart of accounts tidy so the reports mean something, and flags things that look wrong before they reach the accountant.
Two distinctions matter. First, a bookkeeper can only prepare and lodge your BAS for a fee if they are a registered BAS agent with the Tax Practitioners Board, or working under the supervision of one. Second, bookkeepers are not tax advisers. They can tell you what the GST on a transaction was; whether the transaction should have been structured differently is an accountant's question.
Frequency is the other variable. A business with a few transactions a week can be reconciled monthly. One with daily sales, stock and a dozen staff needs weekly attention or the file drifts, the debtors age and the BAS becomes a reconstruction exercise. We match the cadence to the volume rather than to the calendar.
An accountant takes the reconciled books and turns them into financial statements and tax returns for each entity: company, trust, partnership, SMSF and the individuals behind them. That is the compliance layer, and it is what most people think an accountant does. Registered tax agents are regulated by the Tax Practitioners Board and are the only people who can charge to prepare and lodge income tax returns.
The more valuable layer is advice. Which structure should the business trade through, and how should profits flow to the family? When should a company be introduced, or a trust, or a holding entity? What does Division 7A mean for the money you have drawn? How should a business be positioned for sale, and what is it worth? How much tax will this year produce, and what can legitimately be done about it before 30 June? These are accountant questions, and the answers compound over years. Good accountants also keep the calendar for you: when the BAS, the FBT return, the trust distribution minute and the Division 7A repayment are due.
The failure mode is an accountant who does only the first layer. The return is lodged, the fee is paid, and nobody has asked a forward-looking question. Our tax planning and structuring pages describe what the second layer looks like in practice.
A chief financial officer runs the finance function of a business and sits at the table where decisions are made. A virtual CFO does the same thing part-time, for businesses that cannot justify or do not need a full-time executive. The work is forward-looking: cash flow forecasts, budgets, pricing and margin analysis, financial modelling for a new site, a hire or an acquisition, funding and bank relationships, and reporting that tells the owner and any board what is actually going on.
The distinction from an accountant is the direction of view. An accountant explains last year. A CFO plans next year and watches this month against it. In a business where the owner is making decisions on the bank balance, the CFO role is the one that is missing, and it is usually the one with the highest return.
In practice, the CFO work for an SME is a short list repeated well: a rolling forecast refreshed against actuals, a monthly or quarterly report of the handful of numbers that matter, a meeting where decisions are made, and a senior person available when the bank, a major customer or an opportunity calls. Our virtual CFO page describes how we run it.
Bookkeeping is priced by volume: the number of transactions, employees and entities, and whether the work is weekly, monthly or quarterly. It is the least expensive of the three per hour but takes the most hours, so it is worth having done efficiently with the right Xero set-up. Accounting and tax is usually a fixed annual or monthly fee per entity, rising with complexity: a single company costs less than a group of four entities with a trust and an SMSF. Virtual CFO work is priced on scope and cadence, from a quarterly review to a monthly engagement with meetings, and is the most expensive per hour because it is senior time.
We do not quote figures on a web page because every business is different, but we do quote fixed fees up front for every engagement and tell you before the scope changes. The right question is not which is cheapest; it is which gap is costing you the most. Our virtual CFO cost page goes into what drives the price.
What you should always get, at every level, is a fixed price agreed before the work starts, a clear list of what is included, and a conversation before anything changes. Hourly billing without a cap is how finance costs get out of control.
A rough guide by stage, with the caveat that complexity matters as much as revenue. A single-entity business with one revenue stream can be larger than a four-entity group and still need less.
Two caveats. Revenue is a proxy for complexity, not a rule, and an event can override the stage: a sole trader buying a competitor needs CFO and structuring work for that project regardless of size. And the guide assumes the lower layers are in place. A virtual CFO cannot forecast from a file that has not been reconciled, so if the bookkeeping is behind, that comes first.
Under one roof we have bookkeepers and registered BAS agents, registered tax agents and qualified accountants, and the virtual CFO team, all working from the same Xero file. The forecast is built from the figures that went into the BAS. The tax plan reflects the forecast. The bookkeeper knows what the accountant needs and the CFO knows what the bookkeeper found. Nothing is reconciled twice and nothing falls between firms. We also bring in the specialist services as the business needs them: structuring, valuations, SMSF, succession and transactions, from the same team.
For businesses in Brisbane, Logan and the Scenic Rim, that usually means the bookkeeping and accounting are run from Victoria Point or Jimboomba and the CFO conversations happen monthly or quarterly, in person or by video. For clients elsewhere in Australia it all happens online in the same way. If you are unsure where to start, follow the symptom. Late BAS and a messy Xero file means bookkeeping. Tax surprises and structure questions mean accountant. Decisions made on gut feel, and cash that does not match profit, mean CFO.
Most businesses beyond the start-up stage need both, because they do different jobs. The bookkeeper keeps transactions, payroll and BAS current in Xero. The accountant prepares financial statements and tax returns and advises on tax, structure and the bigger decisions. You can do your own bookkeeping with a good Xero set-up and an accountant checking it quarterly, but once there are staff and more than a handful of transactions a week, it is usually cheaper to have it done well.
Only if they are a registered BAS agent with the Tax Practitioners Board, or working under one. A registered BAS agent can prepare and lodge your BAS and IAS, advise on GST and PAYG withholding, and deal with the ATO on those matters. An unregistered bookkeeper can enter the transactions but cannot charge you for preparing or lodging the BAS. Ask for the registration number before you engage anyone for BAS work.
No. Preparing and lodging income tax returns for a fee requires registration as a tax agent, and bookkeepers and BAS agents are not registered for that. A bookkeeper prepares the file the accountant works from, which is valuable, but the financial statements, the tax return, structure advice, Division 7A, trust distributions and tax planning are the accountant's job. If someone offers both without tax agent registration, be cautious.
An accountant looks backward: financial statements, tax returns, BAS, and advice on structure and tax. A CFO looks forward: forecasts, budgets, pricing, funding, financial modelling and reporting that drives decisions. In a large company they are different people in different departments. In an SME a virtual CFO provides the forward view part-time, ideally from the same team that does the accounting, so the forecast is built on numbers that are already right.
When decisions are being made that the bank balance cannot answer. Common triggers are revenue in the low millions, several staff, more than one service line or location, a bank application, an acquisition, a restructure or a planned sale. A smaller business facing one of those events can also need CFO-level work for a project. If cash does not match profit and nobody can explain why, that is usually the signal.
Usually, and it is almost always better. One firm working from one Xero file means the bookkeeping is done the way the accountant needs it, the tax plan reflects the forecast, and nothing is reconciled twice or falls between providers. Each service is priced for the level of work it is, so you are not paying CFO rates for bookkeeping. We quote fixed fees for each part and scale them as the business changes.
