Can Agents Work?

Jobs / Finance and accounting / 13-2011.00

Accountants and Auditors

Examine, analyze, and interpret accounting records to prepare financial statements, give advice, or audit and evaluate statements prepared by others. Install or advise on systems of recording costs or other financial and budgetary data.

US jobs
1,449,500
Median wage
$83,680 a year
Job family
Finance and accounting

Can agents do the work of accountants and auditors?

We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Finance and accounting:

  • Task levelPartialOn Vals AI's Finance Agent benchmark, where agents research SEC filings to answer an analyst's questions, the best model scores 64.4%. Adjacent spreadsheet tasks score higher (83.1% on SpreadsheetBench). No task-level benchmark in our collection tests bookkeeping or audit work inside accounting systems.
  • Project levelPartialOn APEX-Agents, which includes investment-banking tasks written by professionals, the best agent passes 73.5% of tasks on the first try (all domains). OpenAI reports that GPT-5.5's GDPval deliverables, from occupations that include accountants and financial managers, won or tied against professionals' work in 84.9% of comparisons.

Benchmarks for the job family

These cover work in finance and accounting, not always this occupation's tasks.

Typical tasks

From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.

  • Prepare, examine, or analyze accounting records, financial statements, or other financial reports to assess accuracy, completeness, and conformance to reporting and procedural standards.
  • Process invoices for payment.
  • Review accounts for discrepancies and reconcile differences.
  • Compute taxes owed and prepare tax returns, ensuring compliance with payment, reporting, or other tax requirements.
  • Prepare adjusting journal entries.
  • Inspect account books and accounting systems for efficiency, effectiveness, and use of accepted accounting procedures to record transactions.
  • Prepare detailed reports on audit findings.
  • Prepare, analyze, or verify annual reports, financial statements, and other records, using accepted accounting and statistical procedures to assess financial condition and facilitate financial planning.
  • Collect and analyze data to detect deficient controls, duplicated effort, extravagance, fraud, or non-compliance with laws, regulations, and management policies.
  • Review data about material assets, net worth, liabilities, capital stock, surplus, income, or expenditures.
  • Report to management regarding the finances of establishment.
  • Evaluate taxpayer finances to determine tax liability, using knowledge of interest and discount rates, annuities, valuation of stocks and bonds, and amortization valuation of depletable assets.
Other job titles for this occupation (53)

Accountant · Accounting Officer · Audit Partner · Auditor · Cost Accountant · CPA (Certified Public Accountant) · Financial Auditor · Financial Reporting Accountant · General Accountant · Internal Auditor · Account Auditor · Accounting Auditor · Accounting Consultant · Accounting Methods Analyst · Accounting Systems Analyst · Auditor in Charge · Bank Accountant · Budget Accountant · Bursar · City Auditor · Compliance Analyst · Compliance Auditor · Corporate Accountant · County Auditor · Data Processing Auditor · Field Auditor · Financial Accountant · Forensic Accountant · Fund Accountant · General Ledger Accountant · Industrial Accountant · Information Systems Auditor · Insurance Auditor · Inventory Accountant · Inventory Auditor · Medical Accountant · Medical Auditor · Mutual Fund Accountant · Payroll Auditor · Project Accountant · Property Accountant · Public Accountant · QC Auditor (Quality Control Auditor) · Railroad Accountant · Railroad Auditor · Revenue Accountant · Staff Accountant · Staff Auditor · Tax Accountant · Tax Auditor · Traveling Accountant · Traveling Auditor · Traveling Repair Accountant