Accounting Resume Skills

Here are 9 accounting skills that hiring managers love seeing on resumes submitted for accountant jobs:

1. Accounting certifications
2. Industry principles
3. Financial regulations
4. Accounting processes
5. Bookkeeping software
6. Communication skills
7. Customer service
8. Attention to detail
9. Analytical and problem solving skills

1. Accounting certifications

Show employers what accounting core competencies you possess by listing your professional certifications on your resume. Here are some examples of common accounting certifications:

2. Industry reporting principles

Highlight your understanding and application of US Generally Accepted Accounting Procedures (GAAP) for financial reporting on your resume. Research your target organization to discover if you should also mention familiarity with GAAP variations from government boards or international standards, including the following:

3. Financial regulations

As an accountant, you must be well-versed in the US tax code. You don’t have to read the entire code — it’s almost 7,000 pages long — but you should show up-to-date knowledge on your resume by:

• explaining your tax code interpretation philosophy — for example, do you avoid gray areas in the law, or do you get creative to maximize deductions?
• indicating how you’ve worked with the latest changes to the code
• listing the types of tax reports you can file
• highlighting the number of reports you’ve filed without triggering an audit

4. Accounting processes

Add basic accounting process skills on your resume to show your target employer what you can do, including:

• Accounts receivable/payable budgeting
• Payroll processing
• Financial reports
• Auditing
• Facilitated risk analysis process (FRAP)

5. Bookkeeping software

When the hiring manager reads your resume, they look for your accounting software expertise. List these common programs on your accountant resume:

6. Communication skills

Yes, you work with numbers, but you still need good communication skills to be a good accountant. You’ll have to discuss your work with managers and coworkers, and you must be able to explain complex accounting concepts in terms clients can understand.

Here are several great communication skills to list on your accounting resume in 2021:

• Verbal communication
• Public speaking
• Remote communication (Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom)
• Presentation skills
• Written communication
• Active listening

7. Customer service

Whether you want to work for an accounting firm or eventually open your own practice, you must have excellent customer service skills to attract and keep clients. Here are some key customer service skills to put on your resume:

8. Attention to detail

You must be attentive to detail to maintain accurate general ledgers and catch discrepancies that trigger IRS audits. Your accounting resume should show employers that you work efficiently by doing things right the first time to avoid repeating work or creating compliance issues.

9. Analytical and problem solving skills

Part of your job as an accountant is to analyze financial data to generate reports and evaluate budgets. Your resume should show that you can help companies and individuals:

• reduce taxes
• find space in budgets
• fix inefficiencies in accounting processes
• reconcile accounts
• create financial projections
• perform risk assessments

How to list accounting skills on your resume

Knowing what accounting skills to put on your resume is great, but knowing how to list them will make your application stand out. Here’s everything you need to know about listing your accountant skills on a well-written resume:

Put your key accounting skills in a resume summary

Your resume summary is the first part of your resume employers see. Put your most impressive skills in this 2–3 sentence introduction to grab the hiring manager’s attention and increase the chances that they’ll read all of your qualifications.

Unsure whether your summary should feature your accounting certifications or highlight the amount of money your accounting decisions saved? Follow these 4 steps to decide which skills to put in your summary:

1. Read the job description
2. Circle the skills mentioned
3. Check for language that indicates the company prioritizes certain skills — for example, many job ads differentiate between minimum and preferred requirements
4. Emphasize any preferred skills you have, or list your basic accounting skills and use soft skills to show you can quickly learn preferred skills

Here’s an example of a resume summary that showcases accounting skills:

Quantify your accountant skills in a work experience section

Put your accounting skills in context with specific examples and hard numbers in your resume’s work experience section. Providing context for your skills shows the employer that you produce results.

Here are examples of data to include on your resume:

• Amounts of money you saved
• Percentage of profit you increased
• Number of accountants supervised
• Size of budget managed
• Number of clients served

This accounting resume work experience entry promotes the candidate’s relevant skills using data and examples:

Create a skills section

Adding a skills section to your resume draws the hiring manager’s eyes to a list of your best accounting competencies.

Create a simple bulleted list of your relevant technical skills and soft skills, or make this section extra easy to read with bold headings, like this:

Skills

• Software: QuickBooks, Mosaic, SAP ERP
• Procedures: Account reconciliation, tax preparation, FRAP, payroll, accounts payable/receivable
• Certifications: CPA, CFA
• Languages: English (native), Spanish (fluent)