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Accountants record, summarize and verify financial information. The work splits into strands: financial accounting produces the statements outsiders rely on; management accounting produces the costs and budgets managers steer by; auditors independently check other people's figures; tax accountants compute and defend what is owed. Much of the day is reconciling — making two independent records of the same money agree.

A bookkeeper records transactions as they happen — invoices, payments, payroll. An accountant works a level up: adjusting and closing the books, producing financial statements, interpreting them, filing tax and, where licensed, signing opinions a bookkeeper legally cannot. The boundary is blurring as software takes over the recording, pushing bookkeepers toward advisory work and accountants toward review.

Usually, but less universally than people assume. A US CPA license requires 150 college credit hours in most states, though several states began accepting 120 hours plus extra experience from 2024–25. UK firms hire school-leavers into paid apprenticeships leading to chartered status, the ACCA qualification is open-entry, and India's chartered accountancy course can begin straight from secondary school.

They are sibling licenses from different family trees. "Chartered accountant" descends from the royal charters granted to Scottish accounting societies from 1854, and is the credential across the UK, most of the Commonwealth and India. "Certified public accountant" began with New York's 1896 law and is the American license. Each country restricts audit sign-off to holders of its own license.

Typically five to eight years from leaving school: a three- or four-year degree, then two to four years of professional exams taken alongside supervised work. India's chartered accountancy course is famously attritional — pass rates at the final exam often run between ten and twenty percent per attempt — so many candidates there take considerably longer than the nominal course length.

The US median for accountants and auditors was about $81,000 in 2024, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Newly qualified chartered accountants in London typically earn £50,000–£60,000; newly qualified CAs in India averaged around ₹12 lakh in 2024 campus placements. At the top, Big Four equity partners commonly earn $500,000 to well over $1 million a year.