Purchase ledger careers: Numbers are not a total bore

For Dickens, the purchase ledger was a grim tome, a symbol of capitalist power warping the human spirit, with Scrooge and Ralph Nickleby bent double over ledgers, bewitched by lists of credit and debit.

Fortunately, things have changed a fair bit since Dickens' day. The ledger has gone from leather-bound tome (and spiritual tomb) to a nifty software programme. Far from cramping your soul, these days taking charge of its contents offers you a foundation you can use to travel or to step up in the business world.

Purchase-ledger clerks make sure that a company's bills get paid, and to the right amount; a role that gives an understanding of the nuts and bolts of how a business works. To do the job, you'll need an eye for detail, a love of numbers and chasing expenses and invoices - and few academic or professional qualifications.

At £14,000 to £25,000 a year for a purchase-ledger clerk, with most on around £20,000 and supervisors earning up to £35,000, the pay is pretty good for an office job that only requires a handful of GCSEs.

And although clerks know it is not cool to admit, being a ledger clerk can be fun. So says Cathy Howard, 24, an accounts-payable clerk with the agency FSS, currently working at Universal Pictures in London.

"It is satisfying to take a 2,000-line invoice, check it all adds up and, if there's a problem, solve it."

Howard has also found a background in accounts invaluable in the two years she has spent travelling since leaving behind her home in Australia. "The pay's better than bar work, admin and all that, and it's an easy job to move in and out of," she says.

And it has also allowed Howard to think about the future. "You can get a lot out of this job," she says. "You're in contact with people high up across the company. You can ask them how things work, learn from them, and get a foot in the door."

Which is exactly what Thomas McInnes is up to. When he was at college, McInnes, 21, decided he wanted a job that combined security and a chance to indulge his interest in numbers. "I'm better with numbers than with words," he says. "You can't go wrong with numbers."

After doing an HND in accountancy, he got a job as a purchase-ledger clerk through the agency Joslin Rowe as the first step on his way to a career in finance. Soon he will be moving to Edinburgh, where he wants to study to be a chartered accountant while he works.

The company McInnes works for now, Honeywell, manufactures products from antidepressants to wax, and has factories and suppliers based around the world. McInnes fields queries from all of them, dealing with hundreds of enquiries each week.

"You're dealing with a lot of contacts spread across the world and you're dealing with different problems every day," he says. "So no two days are the same."

Anne Cunningham, 52, knows this. Cunningham has worked for all kinds of companies, dealing with everything from large invoices for warehouse stock, through to paying the plumber to come and fix the sink. Now working through the agency Reed for a property company, she says the job changes according to where you work.

"You have to give different codes to invoices for, say, a driver's petrol and his stay at a hotel overnight," she says. "Some things are VAT-able, some aren't." So she has to understand, check and codify every expenses claim and every piece of stock that passes through the company.

But it is most interesting when things go wrong, says Cunningham. "I enjoy it when you can't get a total to work and you need to find out where the problem is," she says. "You get together with someone and put pen to paper for a day or two, and when you find the error, it's very satisfying."

Cathy Howard agrees: "The problem-solving aspect is the fun bit. There's always an answer, and when you find it, it all fits into place."

So, if you like solving problems, you might find the answer you're looking for in a purchase ledger.