An accountant’s job is to handle the financial matters of the company or client he/she works for. However, this can include a great many different responsibilities, depending on what type of accounting is being performed. There are four major fields in accounting, each with separate responsibilities and specialties. These fields are public accounting, management accounting, government accounting, and internal auditing.

The scope of the work that an accountant in a particular field might perform is often large, but accountants will often have a focus within their field. In other words, each field of accounting will also have sub-concentrations. In general, an accountant is trained in all of the areas relating to his/her particular field even if he/she only performs a particular subset of those tasks.