1. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA • Private
In-State Tuition
$55,584
Enrollment
10,764
Audit specialists are responsible for examining and auditing an organization's financial records to ensure that the financial transactions are truthful and balanced. They work to show that a company is free of fraud and transparent in maintaining its financial records. They are in charge of handling complex and challenging audit projects.
Audit specialists perform these duties to arrive at an ultimate goal: to enhance the organization's growth in a bid to achieve its goals and objectives. Part of their duties includes designing and implementing different audit strategies, procedures, programs for complex assignments. They formulate other policies and procedures for complex tasks and make recommendations to improve a particular project's efficiency.
Audit specialists mostly hold a bachelor's degree in finance, management, audit, or other relevant fields and a certificate in public accounting or a certified management accounting certification. Some years of auditing experience may also prove advantageous in this field. Audit specialists earn an average salary of approximately $59,000 annually, or $28 per hour.
There are certain skills that many audit specialists have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed organizational skills, detail oriented and math skills.
If you're interested in becoming an audit specialist, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 55.4% of audit specialists have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 9.6% of audit specialists have master's degrees. Even though most audit specialists have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, an audit specialist can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as accountant, progress to a title such as senior accountant and then eventually end up with the title corporate controller.
What Am I Worth?
The role of an audit specialist includes a wide range of responsibilities. These responsibilities can vary based on an individual's specific job, company, or industry.Here are some general audit specialist responsibilities:
There are several types of audit specialist, including:
Auditors are high-level accountants who investigate accounting processes and cash-flow records of firms, corporations, or other organizations to make sure the books are not cooked and everything corresponds to regulations and legal standards.
An auditor does not necessarily work for the IRS. They might be internal auditors of a company or experts conducting external audits, employed by public or private accounting firms.
As auditors are usually associated with revealing fraud, they might trigger people's guilt complex, which can make it a bit hard for them to make new friends. Contrary to popular belief, though, auditors are much less the lone wolves we make them out to be. They work in teams and meet a lot of interesting people through their work, such as leaders of different industries. Sometimes, they even crack a joke. They are just accountants who control other accountants, really.
Auditing is a stable career option with the possibility to earn above average income. So what if people think you are boring?
The main goal of the internal auditing department of any organization is to gather information that can be analyzed and converted into valuable insights to determine how the company can be run more efficiently. There are four common techniques that are used in the practice of internal auditing to achieve this end. They include observing the target business environment; inspecting the specific risk management, financial reporting, and productivity strategies that are currently in place; inquiring or asking questions of management personnel related to the effectiveness of the current internal controls; and confirming whether the goals and objectives of the business are being met.
If you are interested in working in the area of internal auditing, while in college you might want to choose the electives, federal and state corporate income tax, accounting principals and financial management, and auditing. You will need at least a bachelor's degree in accounting or business administration.
An internal auditor makes an average of $63,273 a year, which translates to $30.42 an hour. Acording to the United States Bureau of Labour Statistics, the career is expected to grow by 6% between the years 2018 and 2028, producing 90,700 new jobs.
A staff auditor is responsible for analyzing an organization's financial activities, ensuring compliance with regulations, and auditing accounts as needed. Staff auditors work under senior auditors' supervision, and they perform similar roles, albeit at a lower level.
A staff auditor may examine and verify an organization's finances or focus on hiring practices and procedures. Staff auditors focus on identifying risks in a company like financial mismanagement, fraud, and other questionable practices. To do this, they often comb through large spreadsheets to dig up information.
Some staff auditors may also review communications and staff actions during an audit. After the review, they create reports containing their findings and recommendations and submit them to upper management staff.
To become a staff auditor, you need a bachelor's degree in accounting or finance. You may also need to become a Certified Public Accountant, even though it's not a requisite for many employers.
Mouse over a state to see the number of active audit specialist jobs in each state. The darker areas on the map show where audit specialists earn the highest salaries across all 50 states.
Rank | State | Number of Jobs | Average Salary |
---|---|---|---|
1 | California | 2,105 | $73,002 |
2 | Texas | 1,383 | $61,115 |
3 | Florida | 1,376 | $38,380 |
4 | New York | 1,180 | $71,841 |
5 | Illinois | 954 | $64,223 |
6 | North Carolina | 862 | $49,196 |
7 | Pennsylvania | 791 | $51,914 |
8 | Georgia | 758 | $49,394 |
9 | Virginia | 712 | $63,848 |
10 | Massachusetts | 691 | $51,185 |
11 | Ohio | 617 | $47,847 |
12 | Michigan | 541 | $53,969 |
13 | New Jersey | 536 | $71,047 |
14 | Arizona | 525 | $49,084 |
15 | Indiana | 450 | $53,726 |
16 | Minnesota | 447 | $48,188 |
17 | Maryland | 439 | $52,803 |
18 | Missouri | 435 | $49,494 |
19 | Washington | 406 | $68,951 |
20 | Colorado | 375 | $58,138 |
21 | Iowa | 363 | $45,916 |
22 | Wisconsin | 360 | $51,819 |
23 | Tennessee | 339 | $44,726 |
24 | Oregon | 279 | $72,002 |
25 | Connecticut | 251 | $55,158 |
26 | Alabama | 238 | $42,641 |
27 | Louisiana | 227 | $42,637 |
28 | Utah | 226 | $49,235 |
29 | South Carolina | 226 | $47,689 |
30 | Nebraska | 207 | $48,435 |
31 | Kentucky | 203 | $43,667 |
32 | Kansas | 194 | $49,375 |
33 | Oklahoma | 182 | $48,680 |
34 | Arkansas | 181 | $50,190 |
35 | Nevada | 173 | $49,996 |
36 | Delaware | 113 | $58,719 |
37 | New Mexico | 109 | $47,065 |
38 | New Hampshire | 107 | $40,567 |
39 | Idaho | 105 | $64,737 |
40 | Hawaii | 104 | $40,600 |
41 | Mississippi | 98 | $52,686 |
42 | Montana | 96 | $50,848 |
43 | Maine | 94 | $35,358 |
44 | West Virginia | 79 | $40,262 |
45 | North Dakota | 77 | $46,180 |
46 | Rhode Island | 73 | $48,942 |
47 | Alaska | 62 | $61,124 |
48 | Vermont | 61 | $40,454 |
49 | Wyoming | 58 | $47,325 |
50 | South Dakota | 57 | $46,738 |
Philadelphia, PA • Private
In-State Tuition
$55,584
Enrollment
10,764
Evanston, IL • Private
In-State Tuition
$54,568
Enrollment
8,451
Los Angeles, CA • Private
In-State Tuition
$56,225
Enrollment
19,548
Vestal, NY • Private
In-State Tuition
$9,808
Enrollment
13,990
Villanova, PA • Private
In-State Tuition
$53,308
Enrollment
6,819
San Diego, CA • Private
In-State Tuition
$7,488
Enrollment
30,018
Waltham, MA • Private
In-State Tuition
$49,880
Enrollment
4,177
Farmingdale, NY • Private
In-State Tuition
$8,306
Enrollment
9,394
Boston, MA • Private
In-State Tuition
$53,948
Enrollment
17,238
Stony Brook, NY • Private
In-State Tuition
$9,625
Enrollment
17,407
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 10.7% of audit specialists listed audit reports on their resume, but soft skills such as organizational skills and detail oriented are important as well.
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Audit Specialist templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Audit Specialist resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
1. Auditing I: Conceptual Foundations of Auditing
This course provides an intensive conceptual and applied introduction to auditing in society. It focuses on concepts and applications related to financial-statement auditors’ professional responsibilities as well as major facets of the audit process including risk assessment and audit reporting. In the U.S. financial-statement audits and related services generally are provided by Certified Public Accountants (CPAs). To succeed in this course, you should anticipate engaging in critical thinking...
2. Audit - Financial Statement
Learn the audit process from planning to audit report form a Certified Public Accountant (CPA)...
3. Internal Audit: a Guide for Management
Internal Audit, Risk Management, Compliance, Governance, Internal Controls, CIA, Audit Report, Audit Charter, IIA...
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as an audit specialist. The best states for people in this position are California, Oregon, New York, and New Jersey. Audit specialists make the most in California with an average salary of $73,002. Whereas in Oregon and New York, they would average $72,002 and $71,841, respectively. While audit specialists would only make an average of $71,047 in New Jersey, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. New York
$71,841
Avg. Salary
2. District of Columbia
$70,108
Avg. Salary
3. California
$73,002
Avg. Salary
Rank | Company | Average Salary | Hourly Rate | Job Openings |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Pwc | $89,775 | $43.16 | 23 |
2 | JPMorgan Chase & Co. | $85,465 | $41.09 | 12 |
3 | Medtronic | $78,352 | $37.67 | 18 |
4 | Accenture | $76,109 | $36.59 | 11 |
5 | KPMG LLP | $71,204 | $34.23 | 13 |
6 | Freedom Mortgage | $64,684 | $31.10 | 10 |
7 | Humana | $59,580 | $28.64 | 45 |
8 | Kaiser Permanente | $58,801 | $28.27 | 9 |
9 | UPS | $56,365 | $27.10 | 9 |
10 | Frontier Airlines | $51,437 | $24.73 | 9 |