Online accounting is where you are managing your business accounts, bookkeeping, and reporting online by working with a digital accounting partner using cloud based accounting software. 

Traditional accounting methods use desktop accounting software which your accountant can’t access, so you either need to employ a separate bookkeeper or do the bookkeeping yourself.  

Using desktop software makes it impossible to share live financial data with your accountant, so before the onset of cloud accounting bookkeeping was never a service offered by accounting firms to small business owners. 

James Watson