Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks

Job purpose

To compute, classify, record and verify the organisation's financial data and to process the associated receipts, payments and returns, so that accounting records are complete and accurate and the organisation's company and statutory obligations are met.

Skills

• Working knowledge of bookkeeping and accounting practice — journals and ledgers, debits and credits, trial balances, accounts payable and receivable — with the arithmetic needed for amounts due, interest, discounts, equity, principal and balances, office and records administration, specialised accounting software and spreadsheets, and the federal, state and company policies and regulations governing the records. Secondary-level education is the norm, with a substantial minority holding a post-secondary certificate, and one or two years of on-the-job training.
• Answers general and account-specific questions from colleagues, customers and outside parties by telephone, e-mail and letter, handles routine correspondence, and reports discrepancies found in records to those able to resolve them. Explains figures to people who do not work with accounts.
• Checks figures, postings and documents for correct entry, mathematical accuracy and proper codes, reconciles records of bank transactions, compares computer printouts with manually maintained journals, and monitors loans and accounts to confirm that payments are up to date. Problems are procedural, with company procedure and accounting convention supplying the answer; what cannot be resolved is noted, reported and passed on.
• Works to fixed cycles — payroll runs, bank deposits, billing, reconciliations and tax and pension return deadlines — and organises its own tasks and priorities within them. The deadlines themselves are set by the accounting calendar and by statutory filing dates rather than by the postholder.
• Seated work at a computer using accounting software, spreadsheets and databases, together with 10-key calculators, typewriters and copy machines, with continuous keyboard and keypad use.

Responsibilities

• No supervisory responsibility. Works within a finance or administrative team and may coordinate colleagues in completing shared work.
• Handles money directly: receives, records and banks cash, cheques and vouchers; prepares bank deposits by compiling data from cashiers and verifying and balancing receipts; calculates and prepares cheques for utilities, taxes and other payments; issues bills, invoices and account statements; and prepares purchase orders, expense reports and payroll. Amounts follow established procedure, estimates, quotations and price lists, and no discretion is held over what is spent.
• Ordinary care of a workstation, accounting software and office machines. Maintains inventory records but carries no responsibility for stock itself.
• Holds the integrity of the organisation's primary financial records: classifies, records and summarises numerical and financial data in journals, ledgers, spreadsheets and databases, codes documents to company procedure, prepares trial balances, and compiles statistical, financial, accounting and auditing reports on cash receipts, expenditure, payables, receivables and profit and loss. Completes tax returns, workers' compensation and pension contribution forms and other government documents. The data is confidential and an error propagates into statutory filings and management figures.

Effort required

• Detailed and exacting concentration for long periods on figures, codes and postings, where accuracy is the substance of the work and a transposed digit is not self-evident. The task is highly repetitive, so sustained attention is the main demand, and it is interrupted throughout by telephone calls, e-mail and enquiries about particular accounts.
• Limited emotional demand. Holds confidential financial information and must raise discrepancies that may reflect on colleagues' work, and occasional complaints or disputes arise with customers and suppliers over amounts owed.
• Seated at a workstation for the greater part of the day, with continuous repetitive keyboard, keypad and mouse use. No lifting or exertion.

Working conditions

• Indoor, environmentally controlled office with no physical hazard beyond office noise that can be distracting. Works alongside others as part of a team, with some direct dealings with external customers, and psychological exposure is slight.
• Almost all incumbents work a regular established schedule and the standard week is forty hours. The work is time-pressured around cycle and filing deadlines and interrupted by calls and queries, and decisions are taken frequently but within company procedure and regulation. Sequences its own work, referring anything outside procedure upward.