Accounting Assistant Career Overview

Accounting assistants work in a variety of settings, from small businesses to large accounting firms and major corporations. Their key duties include tracking and recording transactions, keeping up-to-date records, and performing accuracy checks on financial data.

Accounting assistants often work under senior accounting professionals such as staff accountants or certified public accountants (CPAs). However, some small businesses with simple accounting needs employ them as bookkeepers.

As an accounting assistant, you can build a career as a support-level professional, or advance toward staff accountant with additional education. Learn more about the education, skills, and career outlook for accounting assistants.

Accounting assistants perform a wide variety of duties. Some work as generalists, supporting senior members of accounting teams. Others specialize in payroll, accounts payable (AP or A/P), or accounts receivable (AR or A/R).

Despite varying job requirements, accounting assistants tend to have similar tasks. Their common responsibilities include:

Accounting specializations can help you stand out to employers and demonstrate your expertise. Examples of common assistant-level areas of expertise include:

Auditing is an accounting specialization that involves examining and verifying data to ensure its accuracy and legal compliance. External auditors analyze financial records for evidence of misrepresentation and fraud, while internal auditors perform complex accuracy and compliance checks.

External and internal auditors and auditing firms often employ assistants and clerks to perform basic checks and data reviews. These roles build experience that can help you qualify for valuable credentials, such as certified internal auditor certification.

Payroll accounting involves distributing compensation to employees. In most organizations, primary compensation takes the form of hourly wages or fixed salaries. As such, payroll accounting mainly concentrates on tracking hours, calculating deductions, and managing the funds withheld for taxation purposes.

Many employers offer benefits packages and other forms of employee compensation, such as bonuses or stock options. Payroll clerks also track and distribute these remunerations and any associated deductions or taxes.

Larger organizations often have dedicated accounting divisions to manage their accounts payable and/or accounts receivable.

A/P accounting professionals ensure that all bills and other payables are resolved accurately and on time. A/R professionals issue and track invoices, record payments and adjustments, and update customer relationship management files. In some organizations, accounting assistants or clerks perform both A/P and A/R duties.

Most accounting assistant positions require postsecondary education. Some employers hire people with accounting certificates. Others prefer or require applicants with an accounting associate degree or bachelor’s degree in accounting.

On-the-job training is an important supplement to formal education. You will apply the accounting and technology skills you learned in school in entry-level roles, which can lead to advancement opportunities as you gain experience.

You can work toward a certified bookkeeper or certified public bookkeeper credential, or seek a more advanced qualification such as a CPA license. Note that you require at least a bachelor’s degree and 150 semester credits of postsecondary education to qualify for CPA licensure.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports that accounting assistants earned a median salary of $47,440 per year. However, some industries pay much higher average salaries. For instance, accounting assistants working for the U.S. Postal Service have an average annual salary of $78,530.

Location can also affect earning potential. The five top-paying states for accounting assistants are:

Note that these locations all rank among the most expensive places to live in the United States.

Overall, the BLS projects a 5% decline in the number of bookkeeping, accounting assistant, and payroll clerk jobs from 2023-33. Advanced software platforms and artificial intelligence have automated some routine accounting tasks. You can adapt to the changing environment by building proficiency with technical tools and developing financial analysis skills.

Despite the expected decline, the BLS still anticipates nearly 175,000 annual openings for bookkeepers, accounting assistants, and payroll clerks from 2023-33.

I found myself enjoying the numbers, understanding financial data and how it is used to determine whether businesses are doing well or badly. I also like that we can use the past to assist with making better decisions within a business in the future. Accounting can be a tool as much as it is a language for displaying how a business is performing.

I needed a degree in accounting. Being an accounting assistant is usually the first stepping stone to becoming an accounting professional. I initially thought I needed a master’s degree too. However, as time went on, I realized I had enough credits from my bachelor’s degree to take the CPA exams. That’s mainly because I took a lot of extra courses.

Those that know from the start that they want to do accounting and become a CPA usually need their master’s degree before they can sit for the exams. If getting a degree will be a longer journey for you but you need to work, I recommend finding entry-level accounting jobs like accounts payable clerk or accounts receivable clerk. Faster job progression tends to come after you have your degree, especially if you start at a public accounting firm.

For myself, I had a job lined up just before graduating. That was because I joined Beta Alpha Psi and attended a lot of networking events through that society as I attended college. The largest accounting firms tend to recruit directly that way, and I was able to meet a lot of potential employers that way. Before graduating I got several calls and gave it a day or two to choose which firm I wanted to start my career at.

Accounting assistants do a lot of duties that involve tedious work. So the faster you can figure out how to do something, the better. The accounting assistant role can be diverse. One day you could be analyzing large amounts of data within an [Microsoft] Excel spreadsheet to research accounting and tax regulations for your supervisor. It also depends on the firm or business you are working for.

For example, working for a small accounting firm is very different from a large public accounting firm. Many small firms focus on nonprofit reviews and audits, while large firms will do Public Company Accounting Oversight Board audits and large government audits. Likewise, working for the government will be extremely different from working at an accounting firm. The more you are familiar with different analytical software beyond Excel, like [Microsoft] Power BI, the more of an asset you will be to your senior accountant or employer.

It was a little uncomfortable transitioning from assistant to CPA because you feel like you need to have all the confidence and experience before leading projects or advising clients. While some of that comes with time, the resources available are there. You just have to use them. That could mean reaching out to fellow employees, old and new colleagues, and reliable internet-based sources.

The most rewarding aspect would be working through a problem and finding a solution that you know is right and works. Along with that is the challenge of finding those solutions. We sometimes want to naturally find what is easiest. Sometimes it requires a lot of digging and time investment before knowing which solution is best.

This is a broad explanation, but it’s so applicable whether it is developing tax strategies for a business client, trying to validate data in an audit, or creating the work processes to do it. As an accounting assistant, you need to think like a manager. Ask yourself, how would I feel if I was the accounting assistant to myself? Would I want someone better?

Your ability to take ownership of the work you do. Would you work just as hard if you were the accounting assistant of your own business? Managers want to see who will be their next seniors or managers. That evaluation starts on Day 1. Look for ways you can be more efficient and innovative. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and know the learning curve is a vertical one. School teaches you accounting; work teaches you how to do it.

Remember that things change. You may find yourself doing more with IT and software-related work than actual accounting or auditing. Other times, you may find you misled yourself into the wrong path within the accounting profession. For me, school really pushed auditing, but I later realized that tax planning and strategy for entrepreneurs was more interesting for me. That took years for me to figure out and I hit a lot of walls. You may find the same thing. I do envy some of my colleagues who didn’t have to experience that and just hit the ground running. Either way, trust your instincts on this. You want to enjoy the work you do.