How to become Accountants and Auditor in 2024

Accountants and Auditor Examine, analyze, and interpret accounting records to prepare financial statements, give advice, or audit and evaluate statements prepared by others. Install or advise on systems of recording costs or other financial and budgetary data.

Accountants and Auditor is Also Know as

In different settings, Accountants and Auditor is titled as

  • Accountant
  • Accounting Officer
  • Audit Partner
  • Auditor
  • Certified Public Accountant (CPA)
  • Cost Accountant
  • Financial Auditor
  • General Accountant
  • Internal Auditor
  • Revenue Tax Specialist

Education and Training of Accountants and Auditor

Accountants and Auditor is categorized in Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Accountants and Auditor

A considerable amount of work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is needed for these occupations. For example, an accountant must complete four years of college and work for several years in accounting to be considered qualified.

Education Required for Accountants and Auditor

Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not.

Degrees Related to Accountants and Auditor

Training Required for Accountants and Auditor

Employees in these occupations usually need several years of work-related experience, on-the-job training, and/or vocational training.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Accountants and Auditor in different industries are

What Do Accountants and Auditor do?

  • Prepare detailed reports on audit findings.
  • Report to management about asset utilization and audit results, and recommend changes in operations and financial activities.
  • Collect and analyze data to detect deficient controls, duplicated effort, extravagance, fraud, or non-compliance with laws, regulations, and management policies.
  • Inspect account books and accounting systems for efficiency, effectiveness, and use of accepted accounting procedures to record transactions.
  • Supervise auditing of establishments, and determine scope of investigation required.
  • Confer with company officials about financial and regulatory matters.
  • Examine and evaluate financial and information systems, recommending controls to ensure system reliability and data integrity.
  • Inspect cash on hand, notes receivable and payable, negotiable securities, and canceled checks to confirm records are accurate.
  • Examine records and interview workers to ensure recording of transactions and compliance with laws and regulations.
  • Prepare, examine, or analyze accounting records, financial statements, or other financial reports to assess accuracy, completeness, and conformance to reporting and procedural standards.
  • Prepare adjusting journal entries.
  • Review accounts for discrepancies and reconcile differences.
  • Establish tables of accounts and assign entries to proper accounts.
  • Examine inventory to verify journal and ledger entries.
  • Analyze business operations, trends, costs, revenues, financial commitments, and obligations to project future revenues and expenses or to provide advice.
  • Report to management regarding the finances of establishment.
  • Develop, implement, modify, and document recordkeeping and accounting systems, making use of current computer technology.
  • Evaluate taxpayer finances to determine tax liability, using knowledge of interest and discount rates, annuities, valuation of stocks and bonds, and amortization valuation of depletable assets.
  • Examine whether the organization's objectives are reflected in its management activities, and whether employees understand the objectives.
  • Audit payroll and personnel records to determine unemployment insurance premiums, workers' compensation coverage, liabilities, and compliance with tax laws.
  • Review taxpayer accounts, and conduct audits on-site, by correspondence, or by summoning taxpayer to office.
  • Compute taxes owed and prepare tax returns, ensuring compliance with payment, reporting, or other tax requirements.
  • Advise clients in areas such as compensation, employee health care benefits, the design of accounting or data processing systems, or long-range tax or estate plans.
  • Represent clients before taxing authorities and provide support during litigation involving financial issues.
  • Direct activities of personnel engaged in filing, recording, compiling, and transmitting financial records.
  • Conduct pre-implementation audits to determine if systems and programs under development will work as planned.
  • Develop, maintain, or analyze budgets, preparing periodic reports that compare budgeted costs to actual costs.
  • Prepare, analyze, or verify annual reports, financial statements, and other records, using accepted accounting and statistical procedures to assess financial condition and facilitate financial planning.
  • Process invoices for payment.
  • Review data about material assets, net worth, liabilities, capital stock, surplus, income, or expenditures.

Qualities of Good Accountants and Auditor

  • Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
  • Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
  • Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
  • Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
  • Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
  • Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
  • Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
  • Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
  • Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
  • Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
  • Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
  • Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
  • Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
  • Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
  • Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
  • Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
  • Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
  • Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
  • Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
  • Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
  • Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
  • Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
  • Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
  • Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
  • Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
  • Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
  • Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
  • Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
  • Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
  • Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
  • Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
  • Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
  • Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.

Tools Used by Accountants and Auditor

  • 10-key calculators
  • Computer data input scanners
  • Desktop computers
  • Laptop computers
  • Laser facsimile machines
  • Notebook computers
  • Personal computers
  • Personal digital assistants PDA
  • Photocopying equipment
  • Scanners
  • Tablet computers

Technology Skills required for Accountants and Auditor

  • 1099 ProsSoftware
  • Abacus Tax
  • Accountants Templates JAZZ-It!
  • Accounting compliance software
  • Accounting fraud detection software
  • Accounting software
  • Accounts payable software
  • Accounts receivable software
  • ACCUCert
  • Accurate NXG
  • ACL Audit Exchange
  • ACL Business Assurance Analytics
  • AcornSystems Corporate Performance Management
  • AcorynSystems Activity Based Costing/Management ABC/M
  • AdaptaSoft CyberPay
  • Adobe Acrobat
  • ADP Super Report Writer
  • ADP Workforce Now
  • Advanced Micro Systems 1099-Etc
  • Alteryx software
  • American Riviera Magtax
  • Apache Solr
  • Arbutus Analyzer
  • Asset management software
  • ATX Total Accounting Office
  • ATX Total Engagement Office
  • ATX Total Tax Office
  • Audit management software
  • Audit planning and control environment software
  • AuditWare CaseWare Examiner
  • AuditWare financial reporting and auditing software
  • Automated auditors fraud detector software
  • Automation Counselors municiPAL
  • Avalara AvaTax ST
  • Best MIP Fund Accounting
  • Best Software CPAPayroll
  • Bi3 Audit Intelligence
  • Bi3 Financial Statement Fraud Analysis
  • Billing software
  • BizBench
  • Blackbaud The Raiser's Edge
  • BNA Corporate Tax Audit Analyzer
  • BNA Estate and Gift Tax Suite
  • BNA Income Tax Planning Solutions
  • BNA Sales and Use Tax Rates and Forms
  • Brentmark Estate Planning Quickview
  • Cammack Computations Inter-Est
  • Cartesis ES Magnitude
  • Cartesis Magnitude iAnalysis
  • CaseWare International IDEA
  • CaseWare International IDEA SmartAnalyzer
  • CaseWare Working Papers
  • CashFlow Guardian
  • CCH ProSystem fx TAX
  • CCIS AccountAbility
  • Cebos MQ1 Audit System
  • Choice Technologies PowerBill +
  • Client billing software
  • Corel WordPerfect Office Suite
  • Corporate Responsibility System Technologies Limited Compliance Positioning System
  • Cost accounting software
  • CPSI EHR System
  • Creative Solutions UltraTax 1040
  • CYMA IV Accounting for Windows
  • D'Arcangelo Galileo
  • Data entry software
  • Data extraction software
  • Database software
  • Datavantage
  • Delphi Technology
  • Digital analysis tests and statistics DATAS for Excel
  • Digital analysis tests and statistics DATAS for SAS
  • Document management system software
  • Eko
  • Epic Systems
  • Estate planning software
  • Evron Computer Systems SAGE PFW (Platinum For Windows)
  • Exact Software Macola ES
  • eXtensible Business Reporting Language XBRL
  • FileMaker Pro
  • Financial Competence
  • Financial reporting software
  • Financial statement software
  • Fixed-assets depreciation software
  • FRx Software Microsoft FRx
  • Fund accounting software
  • General ledger software
  • Google Docs
  • Google Sheets
  • Google Slides
  • Guidance Software EnCase Enterprise
  • H&R Block Tax
  • Healthcare common procedure coding system HCPCS
  • Heron CrossTie General Ledger
  • Human resource management software HRMS
  • IAD Audit Leverage
  • IBM Cognos Impromptu
  • IBM Notes
  • IBM Power Systems software
  • IBM SPSS Statistics
  • IDMS Account Ability
  • Income tax return preparation software
  • InformationActive ActiveData for Excel
  • Intellitax financial solutions software
  • Internal audit software
  • Intrax ProcedureNet
  • Intuit Lacerte
  • Intuit ProSeries
  • Intuit QuickBooks
  • Intuit TurboTax
  • Invoice software
  • Iron Mountain Accutrac records management software
  • Kirix ProffiPoint
  • KPB Associates TaxStream
  • Lawson ERP
  • Lead Activity Analyzer
  • Lead Business Analyzer
  • LexisNexis
  • Lumigent Entegra
  • Medical condition coding software
  • Medical procedure coding software
  • MEDITECH software
  • MethodWare ProAudit Advisor
  • Micronetics Xpert Write-up
  • Microsoft Access
  • Microsoft Dynamics
  • Microsoft Dynamics GP
  • Microsoft Dynamics NAV
  • Microsoft Dynamics SL
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft Exchange
  • Microsoft FRx
  • Microsoft Office software
  • Microsoft OneNote
  • Microsoft Outlook
  • Microsoft PowerPoint
  • Microsoft Project
  • Microsoft Publisher
  • Microsoft SharePoint
  • Microsoft SQL Server
  • Microsoft Visio
  • Microsoft Visual Basic
  • Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications VBA
  • Microsoft Windows
  • Microsoft Word
  • Microsoft Works
  • MRO Audit Tracker
  • Multiview Accounts Receivable
  • NetSuite ERP
  • New Millennium Communications Genesis Accounting
  • NewPortWave Year End Solutions
  • NortonLifeLock cybersecurity software
  • OmniRIM Records Management Suite
  • Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition
  • Oracle Database
  • Oracle E-Business Suite Financials
  • Oracle Fusion Applications
  • Oracle Hyperion
  • Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne
  • Oracle PeopleSoft
  • Oracle PeopleSoft Financials
  • Oracle Primavera Enterprise Project Portfolio Management
  • OSI TrustWise
  • Paisley AutoAudit
  • Paisley Cardmap
  • Paisley Focus Control Assurance
  • Paisley IssueTrack
  • Paisley RiskNavigator
  • Palisade @Risk
  • Payroll software
  • Pentana audit work system PAWS
  • Pleier Audit Management System
  • Practice management software PMS
  • PricewaterhouseCoopers TeamMate
  • Pro Systems Client Write-Up System for Windows
  • Profit Developers Electronic File Interchange
  • PROPHIX Enterprise
  • Qlik Tech QlikView
  • R
  • Recovery audit software
  • Roundtable Software Advantage Accounting System
  • RSM McGladrey Advanced Practice Solutions Paperless Audit
  • RSM McGladrey Auditor Assistant
  • Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate
  • Sage 50 Accounting
  • Sage BusinessWorks
  • Sage CPAAccounts Payable
  • Sage CPAAccounts Receivable
  • Sage CPAClient Checkbook
  • Sage CPADocument Manager
  • Sage EDP Payroll Tax
  • Sage ERP Accpac
  • Sage HandiSoft HandiLedger
  • Sage HRMS
  • Sage MAS 200 ERP
  • Sage MAS 500
  • Sage Platinum for Windows PFW
  • Sageworks ProfitCents
  • Salesforce software
  • Sampson Data Pattern Index software
  • SAP Business Objects
  • SAP BusinessObjects Data Integrator
  • SAP Crystal Reports
  • SAP software
  • SAS
  • Softrax Revenue Management
  • Solutions Technology & Software HR Premier
  • Spreadsheet software
  • Star Software Fixed Asset Depreciation
  • Star Software Materiality Calculator
  • Structured query language SQL
  • Summit Software Summit Biofuels Accounting
  • Swift
  • Sync Essentials Trade Accountant
  • Tableau
  • Tax compliance property tax management software
  • Tax software
  • TechSmith Camtasia
  • Teradata Database
  • Thomson Creative Solutions Engagement CS
  • Thomson Creative Solutions Financial Analysis CS
  • Thomson GoSystem Tax
  • Thomson PPC e-Tools Suite
  • Thomson Reuters Risk Management
  • TimeValue software
  • TopCAATs
  • TrendTracker Compliance Solution
  • Tropics workers' compensation software
  • Tumbleweed SecureTransport
  • UA Business Software Professional Edition
  • Universal Tax Systems TaxWise
  • UNIX
  • WizSoft WizRule
  • WizSoft WizWhy
  • Workday software
  • WorkForce Software EmpCenter Time and Attendance
  • Yardi software
  • Yardi Systems Yardi Enterprise