[tantalor]

Bookkeeping is basically just tracking your total assets and debts separately. You can break those down into accounts, but it's optional.

In personal context, doing double-entry would have you log a credit (pay from) to your assets and a debit (pay to) to your debts. For example, when you pay your credit card bill with a check. For generic expenses (whether you pay with cash or credit) and income you wouldn't bother with double-entry.

Why would you want to do this? It's all about "balancing" your net worth; when you have expenses or income your net changes, but when you pay a debt then your worth, or "capital" in bookkeeping jargon, is a constant, and follows the basic rule of accounting: assets = liabilities + capital. Doing double-entry is the most reliable way of following this rule.