Auditor job description
8 verified openings in Auditor
When a company asserts its numbers are right, an auditor is the professional paid to check. The work runs from collecting and analyzing data to detect weak controls, fraud, or breaches of law and policy, through inspecting account books and accounting systems, to reporting what the audit found and what should change. On pay, auditors and accountants are one occupation in the federal wage survey, and the accountant page on this site quotes the same 13-2011 line: half the combined field earned above $83,680 in May 2025, and the ninetieth-percentile figure reached $144,090.
Core Duties and Responsibilities
An engagement has a shape: determine the scope of investigation, examine records and interview the people who keep them, verify cash on hand, notes receivable and payable, securities, and canceled checks against what the books say, and test whether transactions were recorded under accepted accounting procedures. Findings go up in writing, in detailed reports and in recommendations to management on asset use, controls, and changes to operations. System-focused engagements evaluate financial and information systems for reliability and data integrity, sometimes before the system even launches.
Common Skills and Technologies
Writing and judgment carry the reporting end, and the fieldwork leans on listening, since much of it happens in interviews. The toolset employers name starts with Microsoft Excel and reaches into data analysis: Alteryx and IBM SPSS Statistics for testing transactions in bulk, Microsoft SQL Server and Access for pulling them, SharePoint for the workpapers, and Visio for mapping the processes under review. Epic Systems and MEDITECH are on the same list, so an auditor's software can just as easily be a hospital's medical record system as a ledger.
Education, Training, and Career Path
Entry expectations match the accountant's, because it is the same occupation: a four-year degree for most of the work, though O*NET says some of it goes without, and considerable experience on top, with the preparation graded one step below O*NET's highest level. Internal auditor, financial auditor, and audit partner all appear among the titles workers report, and the occupations O*NET files nearest to this one are financial examiners, controllers, and financial managers, which is the company this training keeps.
Sources: O*NET 30.0, 13-2011.00 Accountants and Auditors, https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/13-2011.00. BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, 13-2011, https://www.bls.gov/oes/tables.htm.