What an accounts assistant does, and how to become one

An accounts assistant enters and checks the routine transactions of a business, and helps with the checks at the end of each month. In a small firm the job covers every ledger. In a large one it may cover one part, such as supplier invoices.

• Raise sales invoices and credit notes, and enter them in the sales ledger.
• Check each supplier invoice against the order and the delivery note, code it and enter it in the purchases ledger.
• Write up the cash book, and match each receipt and payment to its invoice.
• Reconcile the bank account and list what does not agree.
• Keep the petty cash and its vouchers.
• Send statements to customers, and check the statements that suppliers send.
• Enter staff expense claims.
• Help with the month-end checks, and keep the spreadsheets the finance team works from.

The work is reviewed. A bookkeeper, a finance manager or an accountant checks it and deals with anything unusual. Adverts also use the titles accounts administrator and finance assistant for the same kind of work.

Each skill below is practised in a named part of Ledger Drill. A path is a subject, and a module is one part of a path.

Double entry

Which account is debited and which is credited for an everyday transaction. The module Double entry from zero, in the path Bookkeeping foundations, starts from nothing.

Business documents

Reading and checking an invoice, a credit note, a statement and a remittance advice. The modules Business documents and Invoices and discounts, in the path Business documents and transactions.

Day books and ledgers

Writing up a day book, posting its totals and posting to each customer's or supplier's account. The modules Books of prime entry, Coding and the ledgers, Sales day books and Purchases day books.

The cash book and petty cash

Recording money in and out, balancing the cash book and running a petty cash float. The modules The cash book and Petty cash, in the path Cash, bank and payments.

Reconciling the bank

Ticking the cash book against the bank statement and explaining every difference. The modules Bank reconciliation and Bank statements.

Spreadsheets

Formulas, totals and cell references. The modules Cells and formulas and Everyday functions, in the path Spreadsheets for the office.

Care

Checking your own figures before someone else has to. Every room here has at least one question that is worked out or posted, not picked from a list.

Each employer decides what it asks for. These are the usual ways in, in no order.

• Apply for a junior or trainee post. Some adverts ask for no accounts experience and train on the job.
• Study for a qualification first, or alongside the job. AAT and ICB are two bodies that award bookkeeping qualifications in the UK. Their own websites have what is current.
• Take an apprenticeship, where an employer offers one. It combines a paid job with study.
• Move across from other office work, such as administration or customer service.

No route promises a job, and this page does not say how long any of them takes.

Read current job adverts for your area before you choose what to study. They say what employers want now.

• The tasks you have done: invoices, the ledgers, the bank, petty cash.
• A qualification, or study towards one. Some adverts accept experience in its place.
• A working level in spreadsheets.
• The accounting software the firm uses. An advert names the package when it matters.
• Accuracy with figures. An employer may set a short practical test at interview, such as entering invoices or a reconciliation.
• Clear writing, for emails to customers and suppliers.

This page gives no pay figures. Pay depends on the area, the employer and your experience, and any figure here would soon be out of date. Current job adverts show it.

If an advert lists a task you have never done, that is the task to practise before you apply.

Ledger Drill is practice. Each room is a few lines of reading, then questions you answer in a set of books: post to T-accounts, build a journal, type a figure, find the wrong line. Every answer is marked at once.

Ledger Drill does not award a qualification, and it is not affiliated with any awarding body. It teaches no accounting package. It teaches the bookkeeping that a package records.

The rooms below follow the order of the job: the two sides of an entry, an invoice, the day books, the cash book, the bank and a spreadsheet total. After them, the path Business documents and transactions follows a sale and a purchase from the first document to the payment.