Auditor Job Description Information

Job Duties and Tasks for an Auditor:

Collect and analyze data to detect deficient controls, duplicated effort, extravagance, fraud, or non-compliance with laws, regulations, and management policies.

Report to management about asset utilization and audit results, and recommend changes in operations and financial activities.

Prepare detailed reports on audit findings.

Review data about material assets, net worth, liabilities, capital stock, surplus, income, and expenditures.

Inspect account books and accounting systems for efficiency, effectiveness, and use of accepted accounting procedures to record transactions.

Examine and evaluate financial and information systems, recommending controls to ensure system reliability and data integrity.

Supervise auditing of establishments, and determine scope of investigation required.

Prepare, analyze, and verify annual reports, financial statements, and other records, using accepted accounting and statistical procedures to assess financial condition and facilitate financial planning.

Confer with company officials about financial and regulatory matters.

Inspect cash on hand, notes receivable and payable, negotiable securities, and canceled checks to confirm records are accurate.

Examine inventory to verify journal and ledger entries.

Examine whether the organization's objectives are reflected in its management activities, and whether employees understand the objectives.

Examine records and interview workers to ensure recording of transactions and compliance with laws and regulations.

Direct activities of personnel engaged in filing, recording, compiling and transmitting financial records.

Produce up-to-the-minute information, using internal computer systems, to allow management to base decisions on actual, not historical, data.

Conduct pre-implementation audits to determine if systems and programs under development will work as planned.

Review taxpayer accounts, and conduct audits on-site, by correspondence, or by summoning taxpayer to office.

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 records, tax returns, and related documents pertaining to settlement of decedent's estate.

Audit payroll and personnel records to determine unemployment insurance premiums, workers' compensation coverage, liabilities, and compliance with tax laws.
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Auditor Salary Information

Auditors are accountants who examine records in their own or client organizations, to check for waste, fraud or mismanagement. They review company procedures and internal controls to evaluate their efficiency and effectiveness, and compliance with applicable regulations. A bachelor's degree in accounting or related field is required, with many auditors holding Certified Public Accountant (CPA) credentials to enhance employability and salaries.

 

Work

• Auditors typically work a standard 40-hour week in their own comfortable offices. However, if they work for large corporations, they sometimes travel to other branches to perform their duties. Those who hire themselves out as consultant may also need to visit client sites. Their median salary is $60,340 per year, with a range of $37,690 to $104,450. This converts to $29.01 per hour, with a range of $18.12 to $50.22, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) as of May 2009.

Experience

• Staying with a job for several years grants not only more knowledge about the job but increases the range of clients and the types of audits that they may require. This longevity makes experienced auditors more valuable to employers, thus increasing compensation. For example, new auditors make $42,240 to $51,534 per year, but at one to four years of work, they earn $44,391 to $56,356. With five to nine years of experience, they receive $50,836 to $72,035, and at 10 to 19 years, they get $48,415 to $78,859. Salaries for those with 20 years or more of employment reach $54,305 to $87,585.

Employers

• Compensation and employability vary by workplace. The biggest employer of auditors are accounting, tax preparation, bookkeeping and payroll services that hire auditing services out to companies that do not have any in-house abilities. They comprise over a quarter of the available 289,970 jobs and pay higher than the median at $35.54 per hour or $73,920 per year. The employer with the highest salaries is the federal government with pay at $42.40 per hour or $88,190, but with only 2 percent of the jobs.

Location

• The state with best paying employers is New York, whose high population and national centers of business pay $40.52 per hour or $84,280 per year, and offer 99,200 jobs for auditors. The city with the highest paying positions is New York City, with wages at $42.28 per hour or $87,940 per year, and with 69,100 jobs.

Read more: An Auditor's Salary Guide | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/info_7834528_auditors-salary-guide.html#ixzz1geKeGjTb

How to Become an Auditor

Becoming an auditor is a process that spans quite a few years of your life. First comes the awesome educational requirement. Then you have to pass the Uniform CPA Examination. Depending on the state in which you take the CPA exam, you may have to fulfill an experience requirement before you can apply for your CPA license. After you have that license, you need to find a job!

Most people interested in accounting or auditing major in business. To earn a business degree, you’re required to take a certain number of classes in a variety of disciplines, such as economics and finance. But if you’re thinking about doing accounting or auditing work for businesses that don’t directly employ you, you have to be very careful about the classes you take.

You can’t sit for the Uniform CPA Exam until you’ve completed all the required course work. In most states (40 as of this writing), students must take an extra year of accounting- and auditing-related classes, such as Advanced Financial Accounting and Advanced Auditing in addition to the standard four years of course work required for a bachelor’s degree.

Many CPA candidates piggyback the extra classes into a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) because they’re usually halfway to that degree after finishing up the additional coursework.

Make sure you understand exactly what classes you need to take in order to sit for the CPA exam in your state. Your college adviser should be able to help you.

After you satisfy all the educational requirements, you’re ready to take the CPA exam. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) writes and scores the exam. The test includes a mix of multiple choice and simulation questions, which are case studies that you research and provide a write-up for based on the question’s criteria.

The four-part Uniform CPA Exam covers these areas:

• Auditing and Attestation (AUD): Auditing covers the principle tasks associated with the job; attestation is an engagement where you issue a report on a subject such as break-even analysis.
• Business Environment and Concepts (BEC): This part of the exam covers general business transactions. For example, you must know the differences between a sole proprietorship and a corporation, or what constitutes a fiscal year (ending on the last day of any month) versus a calendar year-end (ending on the last day of December).
• Financial Accounting and Reporting (FAR): This part of the exam is all about generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) for businesses, governmental entities, and nonprofit organizations.
• Regulation (REG): Federal taxation, business law and ethics, and your professional and legal responsibilities all come into play in this part of the exam. For example, you have the responsibility to possess both the education and experience required for each audit prior to working on the audit.

Article Source: How to Become a Auditor