What Does an Accounting Specialist Do?
Whether working with research grants, department budgets, or a company's general ledger, accounting specialists need to be able to trace a balance back to the entries behind it, such as a salary charged to the wrong fund. The job is distinguished from an assistant's in that specialists fix and explain the records for the finance office and department managers, usually with little day-to-day supervision.
Also known as: Accounting Technician, Senior Accounting Technician
Accounting Specialist Duties and Responsibilities
The primary responsibilities of an accounting specialist include:
- Reconcile general ledger and subsidiary accounts each month and clear old reconciling items.
- Prepare journal entries for corrections, transfers and recurring accruals, with backup attached.
- Monitor grant and fund balances; alert principal investigators and department managers to overspending.
- Review expenses charged to grants against sponsor rules and the institution's own policies.
- Maintain the fixed-asset register, including additions, transfers, disposals and depreciation runs.
- Analyze account variances and write short explanations for the accountant or controller.
- Process cost transfers and interdepartmental charges within the finance office's deadlines.
- Train department staff on coding rules, forms and the accounting system's report screens.
- Pull audit samples and answer auditors' questions about specific entries and approvals.
- Update desk procedures when a system upgrade or new policy changes how a task is done.
Required Skills and Qualifications
To succeed as an accounting specialist, you will need the following skills and qualifications:
- Account reconciliation and journal entries
- Fund and grant accounting, including federal Uniform Guidance cost rules
- Excel lookups, pivot tables and data cleanup
- PeopleSoft, Oracle, Workday or a similar ERP
- An associate degree or college accounting coursework
- Orderly, precise work habits
- Explaining accounting rules to staff outside finance
- Discretion with salary and financial records
Education and Training
An associate degree in accounting gives applicants an edge, although some specialists are hired without a degree after working as accounting clerks. Coursework in cost or fund accounting pays off in the grant and fund work many specialists handle. For the wider group of bookkeeping, accounting and auditing clerks, the BLS norm is some college but no degree, plus several months of training on the job.
Salary and Job Outlook
Typical pay: $43,520 - $61,470 per year, with a median of $50,670.
The range covers the middle half of earners nationwide. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks.
According to BLS, employment of bookkeeping, accounting and auditing clerks is projected to fall about 6 percent from 2025 to 2035. The figure covers every level in that group, from junior bookkeeping clerks to senior technicians. While most of the decline falls on routine data entry, reconciling and explaining accounts still takes a person who knows where each number came from and why it changed. BLS still expects roughly 144,100 openings a year.
Outlook source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections, 2025 to 2035, Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks.