Please answer the following questions:

What is A/R?

What is A/P?

What is a ledger card?

What is a journal entry?

Define depreciation.

What is an Asset?

What is a Liability?

What is depreciation expense?

How does customer invoicing relate to the accounts receivable?

Tell me when you would post an adjusting entry

Does an accounts payable account normally have a debit or credit balance?

Describe the step-by-step process you follow when preparing and processing invoices.

Tell me about your experience with QuickBooks

Tell us about the most challenging task that you've performed in Quickbooks.

How do you customize a report in QuickBooks?

Can you handle customer invoicing?

When do we have to send vendors 1099s?

Tell me about your previous work experience as a bookkeeper.

What were your primary responsibilities?

How much interaction did you have with vendors and clients?

What type of accounting systems are you most familiar using?

Tell me about your computer skills in general.

What sort of financial reports were you responsible for preparing?

Are you familiar with federal, state or local legal requirements?

What type of reporting structure did you work within in previous jobs?

Tell me about a complex project you were tasked with completing under deadline.

What have you done at your present/last company to increase revenues, reduce costs, or save time?

What have you done recently to become a better bookkeeper?

What do you know about this company and our services?

What reports or forms have you filed before?

What kind of budgeting work have you done?

The bank account is off $0.72. How long will you spend looking for the problem and what steps will you take to find it?

When looking for the error, the ideal candidate will say it's likely a transposition error and they would start there first (transposition errors are divisible by 9). They may just say they would check every line item against the statement, which is perfectly valid

What is the accounting equation (or the balance sheet equation) or explain the balance sheet?

A good bookkeeper will explain the balance sheet has assets, liabilities and equity. This is mandatory for anyone you expect to provide accurate financial reports. Ideally they will tell you the equation is: Assets = Liabilities + Equity. If they can't explain the balance sheet, then ask them to describe an asset and liability account. You won't want someone who doesn't know the balance sheet responsible for month end close, but if someone else is ensuring accuracy, just knowing how assets and liabilities are used will be fine.

Rank the following in order of importance for business success: Sales, Teamwork, Quality, Integrity, Profitability, Service

A bookkeeper would preferably list profitability lower on the list because you want to know that they are considering the whole business, not just their job. You would also want to see integrity high on the list. Do you really want a bookkeeper who doesn't value integrity?

If a customer called in angry about charges on an invoice, what would you do?

Describe the difference between a Profit and Loss Account Statement and a Balance Sheet Statement.

When are expenses recorded using the accrual basis of accounting?