What is the difference between bookkeeping and accounts?

The simplest explanation is that bookkeeping is a stage on the way to creating accounts.

All businesses start with sales records, purchase records, and bank records - invoices, bills, receipts, and bank statements. Bookkeeping takes the data in each individual transaction and categorises it so that we can see lists of transactions Eg all the telephone transactions for the year or all the sales transactions for the year.

Once we have the bookkeeping we can start the process of doing accounts. Accounts are a standardised format of presenting the bookkeeping. The totals of the lists that bookkeeping makes could be presented in all sorts of different ways, accountants are trained to adjust the totals according to certain principles and then present them in a prescribed format. In the case of Company Statutory Accounts, they come with notes and it is a legal document, but whatever the business, the annual accounts become the basis for completing the tax return.