Audio transcriptioning involves manually converting an audio file into a word or printable file. There are various types of transcriptions in practice today: Video, Medical, Legal, Business, and more. Each type of transcription involves a different skill set. Audio transcription is normally done by companies who specialize in any type of transcriptions. The normal procedure is for the Data Entry clerk to listen to a recording and type everything into a computer database. This is tedious and time consuming.

There are also machines and computer systems that attempt to transcribe what they heard into text. However, computers lack the sophistication to understand speech variations, accents, and mispronunciations (at least for the next few years). Sometimes machines are used, and then a human will correct the mistakes made by the computer.

Computers with word processing capabilities are a very important tool of the trade in Audio transciption. Transcribers will often have a foot pedal to pause or restart a recording.

Medical Transcriptions involve a lot of audio transcriptioning. Medical transcriptionists must be familiar with medical terms, anatomy, physiology, diagnostic procedures, pharmacology, as well as treatment assessments.

Although audio transcriptionists are available around the world, the Philippines has a fast growing transcriptions industry and India also has a large market share of transcription business.