Accounting Auditing and Bookkeeping Careers Explained

Accounting, auditing, and bookkeeping careers are all about numbers, but they're not just about crunching digits. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that employment of accountants and auditors is projected to grow 6% from 2020 to 2030.

These careers involve working with financial data to ensure accuracy and compliance, which is crucial for businesses and organizations. Bookkeepers, for instance, are responsible for recording financial transactions, which is a vital task that helps businesses stay on top of their finances.

Accountants and auditors, on the other hand, examine financial records to ensure they're accurate and follow laws and regulations. They also provide financial advice to businesses and individuals, which can be a valuable service.

Accounting is the process of recording, classifying, and reporting financial transactions and events. It's a crucial aspect of business operations.

Accountants use financial statements, such as balance sheets and income statements, to provide stakeholders with a clear picture of a company's financial health. These statements are prepared using the accounting equation: Assets = Liabilities + Equity.

The accounting equation is a fundamental concept in accounting that helps accountants ensure that all financial transactions are accurately recorded and reflected in the financial statements.

To become a bookkeeping, accounting, or auditing clerk, you'll need some job preparation. Medium job preparation is required for these roles.

On-the-job training is a key part of learning the skills needed for these jobs. Typically, this training takes around 6 months and is guided by a supervisor or experienced employee.

Formal classroom training may also be necessary, especially if you need to learn specialized computer software. Having a high school diploma and college courses in related subjects, such as accounting, can also be beneficial.

Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks need some level of job preparation to succeed. Medium job preparation is required for this role.

On-the-job training is a common way for new clerks to learn the ropes. Under the guidance of a supervisor or another experienced employee, new clerks learn tasks like double-entry bookkeeping.

Double-entry bookkeeping involves entering each transaction twice: once as a debit (cost) and once as a credit (income). This ensures all accounts are balanced.

Formal classroom training may also be necessary, such as training in specialized computer software. This on-the-job training typically takes around 6 months.

Having a high school diploma and completing college courses in related subjects, like accounting, is preferred by most employers.

As technology advances, it's likely to impact various job roles, including bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing. Technological change is expected to reduce demand for these workers.

Automation is already changing the nature of these jobs, allowing the same amount of work to be done with fewer employees. This is expected to lead to job losses over the next decade.

Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks are shifting from routine tasks to more analytical and advisory roles. They'll focus on analyzing clients' books and identifying areas for efficiency gains.

In this new role, workers will use their expertise to provide valuable insights to clients, rather than just entering data by hand.

Accountants typically have a detail-oriented personality, which is essential for catching even the slightest mistakes that can be costly for organizations. This attention to detail is a key trait that helps accountants avoid errors and discrepancies.

As an accountant, you don't want an auditor to discover mistakes or errors, which can reflect poorly on your work. This is why accountants are meticulous and strive for accuracy in their work.

Auditors, on the other hand, have strong investigative skills that enable them to follow clues and uncover fraudulent behavior. They're good at digging deep to capture intentional miscalculations.

Accounting duties are crucial for businesses to make informed decisions. Accurate bookkeeping is necessary for both internal and external users.

Bookkeepers maintain all the required financial data for businesses, which helps them make crucial operational, investment, and financial choices. This information is also essential for external users, such as investors, financial institutions, or the government, who require trustworthy information to make better investment or lending decisions.

Bookkeeping is the regular recording of a company's financial transactions, which helps make crucial operational, investment, and financial choices.

Companies track all information in their books, and bookkeepers are the individuals who maintain all the required financial data for businesses.

Without bookkeepers, businesses would be unaware of their actual present financial condition, and it also states where the transactions are taking place within the organisation.

Accurate bookkeeping is necessary for external users, such as investors, financial institutions, or the government, who require trustworthy information to make better investment or lending decisions.

Performing account reconciliations is a crucial duty for accountants, ensuring that financial records match bank statements and other financial documents. This involves investigating and resolving discrepancies promptly.

Accountants must also consider offering audit services to help organizations gain deeper insight into their business and meet assurance demands defined by regulations and standards. By doing so, they can assist in decision-making and future aspirations.

Bookkeeping is another essential duty, involving the regular recording of a company's financial transactions to make operational, investment, and financial choices. Accurate bookkeeping is necessary for both internal and external users, such as investors and financial institutions.

Supporting documentation is critical for verifying the accuracy of financial statements, including bank statements, receipts, and invoices. These documents should be organized and easily accessible.

Verifying account balances is also a key duty, ensuring that all entries are accurate and properly recorded. This involves double-checking balances of accounts, including accounts receivable, accounts payable, inventory, and fixed assets.

Auditors will assess internal controls to determine the reliability of financial reporting, so reviewing internal controls is essential. This involves ensuring that internal control procedures are effective and documenting any changes or improvements.

Finally, auditors need to follow accounting standards, such as GAAP or IFRS, to ensure compliance and accuracy in financial statements.

Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks can advance to become accountants or auditors with experience and additional education. This career path requires a strong foundation in computer skills, including spreadsheets and bookkeeping software.

The median annual wage for bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks was $45,560 in May 2021. This wage can vary depending on the industry, with finance and insurance paying the highest median wage of $46,910.

In terms of job outlook, bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks are in demand, with about 197,600 openings projected each year over the decade. This is due to the need to replace workers who transfer to other occupations or exit the labor force.

Here are the median annual wages for bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks in the top industries:

Having a license or certification can significantly boost your chances of getting hired in the accounting field. Some certifications, like the Certified Bookkeeper (CB) designation, show that you have the skills and knowledge needed to perform bookkeeping tasks like overseeing payroll and balancing accounts.

The CB designation is awarded by the American Institute of Professional Bookkeepers and requires at least 2 years of full-time bookkeeping experience or equivalent part-time work, passing a four-part exam, and adhering to a code of ethics.

Certification is especially useful for those without postsecondary education, as it provides expertise in the field and demonstrates your commitment to professional development.

The National Association of Certified Public Bookkeepers offers the Certified Public Bookkeeper (CPB) certification, which also requires passing a four-part exam.

Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks typically have an interest in the Persuading and Organizing interest areas, according to the Holland Code framework.

To become certified, you'll need to pass a four-part exam, and for some certifications, like the CB designation, you'll also need to have relevant work experience.

With experience and additional education, you can advance your career as a bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerk. You can become an accountant or auditor.

If you're unsure about your career path, you can take a career test to measure your interests. This will help you determine if a career as a bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerk is a good fit for you.

Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks need to possess specific qualities to succeed in their role. They need to be computer literate and comfortable using spreadsheets and bookkeeping software.

Detail-oriented individuals are well-suited for this career path. They must pay attention to detail to produce accurate financial records and avoid making errors.

Integrity is also essential for bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks. They have control of an organization's financial documentation and must use it properly and keep it confidential.

Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks deal with numbers daily, so they should be comfortable with basic arithmetic.

Offering additional services can enhance an accountant's career. This is because accountants can leverage their expertise to provide valuable insights and support to their clients.

By offering audit services, accountants can gain deeper insight into a business and help organizations meet assurance demands with confidence. An audit can be a powerful tool for shining a light on a business's current state, informing decision-making and future aspirations.

A growing practice area is ESG audit, which is driven by investor and stakeholder demand for transparency in ESG initiatives. With experience in auditing financial statements and regulatory information, accountants can seamlessly apply their knowledge to ESG data sets.

Cryptocurrency audits are also a growing need, and accountants can capitalize on this trend by offering high-quality audit services. The latest advances in audit automation and research solutions make it possible to deliver exceptional results.

As an accountant, you need a trusted partner to help you navigate the complexities of financial statements and ensure compliance with accounting standards. This partner can be a software provider that offers integrated online audit solutions.

Compliance with accounting standards is crucial, and you can hire a financial reporting service to efficiently carry out this job. Depending on your jurisdiction, you may need to follow GAAP or IFRS.

A trusted partner can help you streamline your audit process and ensure accuracy and efficiency. With the latest advances in audit automation and research solutions, you can offer high-quality audit services to your clients.

Investors and stakeholders are increasingly seeking transparency in ESG initiatives, and a trusted partner can help you seamlessly apply your knowledge to ESG data sets. This includes auditing financial statements, regulatory information, and managing internal controls attestation.

A trusted partner can also help you stay up-to-date with changing accounting and auditing standards. By providing you with a dynamic, end-to-end solution, you can complete audits faster and with absolute confidence.

With cloud-based audit technology and integrated research solutions, you can collaborate seamlessly with stakeholders and securely access your audit online, from anywhere. This is particularly useful for auditing financial statements and ensuring compliance with accounting standards.

Accounting software is a game-changer for accountants and CPA firms, helping them drive efficiencies in all tax areas, including audit.

In a complex tax landscape driven by advances in technology and constantly changing accounting and auditing standards, accountants need a dynamic, end-to-end solution for accurate and efficient audits.

Cognitive computing and AI can simulate human thought processes in a computerized model using machine learning, data mining, pattern recognition, and natural language processing.

These technologies can aggregate data to identify common risk areas based on attributes, like industry or company size, and formulate an audit plan.

By streamlining data and eliminating manual work, auditors can focus more time on situational judgments and seeing the full picture.

Audit judgment skills are typically developed and refined through years of experience, training, and interaction with colleagues, and the latest technologies can harness these judgments from across thousands of audits to provide assistance to auditors in real-time.

Most accounting firms don't have the ability to make large-scale investments in AI, cognitive computing, or data analytics, but they can look to audit software providers to incorporate this technology into their offerings.

With advanced data analytics, auditors can now efficiently obtain client data down to the transactional level, store it securely in the cloud, and apply analytics against the data to identify risk, including potential fraud risk.

Auditors can also more easily benchmark their clients' business metrics against other similar businesses and provide key insights to help clients run their business more effectively.

Cloud-based technology allows audit accountants to securely access their audit online, from anywhere, and seamlessly collaborate with stakeholders in real time.