Accountant Skills for a Resume
Companies hire accountants who close the books accurately and on time, and who make audits easy. Show the size of the entities you handle, the standards and systems you use, and the improvements you made to the close.
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14 skills at a glance
Hard skills
Hard skills
What the work takes, how a hiring manager judges each skill, and a bullet point that shows it.
General ledger accounting
Show the entities, the volume and the complexity you handle.
Example bullet pointKept the general ledger for three subsidiaries, including intercompany entries and eliminations.
Month-end and year-end close
Give the number of days, and what you did to shorten or steady it.
Example bullet pointBuilt a close checklist with owners and deadlines that held the close at five days for 12 months straight.
Account reconciliations
Mention the accounts, and how you cleared old reconciling items.
Example bullet pointCleared $250,000 of reconciling items more than 90 days old from the balance sheet.
Financial statement preparation
Show the statements, the standard and who uses them.
Example bullet pointPrepared quarterly statements and notes for the bank under the loan covenants.
US GAAP or IFRS
Name the standard and any new rules you applied.
Example bullet pointApplied the lease accounting standard to 45 leases, setting up the schedules and journal entries.
Audit support
Show how prepared you were and what the auditors found.
Example bullet pointHad audit schedules ready before fieldwork, and the audit closed a week earlier than the year before.
Tax filings
Name the taxes and the number of jurisdictions.
Example bullet pointPrepared quarterly estimated tax payments and 1099 filings for 200 vendors.
ERP systems (NetSuite, SAP, Oracle, QuickBooks)
Name the system and any setup or automation you did.
Example bullet pointSet up recurring journal entries and saved searches in NetSuite that cut manual entries by a third.
Advanced Excel
Mention lookups, pivot tables or models that others rely on.
Example bullet pointBuilt an Excel accrual model linked to open purchase orders, used by the whole close team.
Soft skills
Shown through what you did, never claimed as adjectives.
Accuracy
Show few errors or audit adjustments.
Example bullet pointHad no audit adjustments on my accounts for two years running.
Deadline focus
Show that close and filing deadlines were met even in hard periods, such as staff shortages or audits.
Example bullet pointMet every filing deadline through a year of staff turnover by planning the calendar a quarter ahead.
Integrity
Show a time you raised a concern or refused a shortcut.
Example bullet pointFlagged an unusual pattern of vendor payments to the controller, which led to stronger approval controls.
Explaining numbers to non-accountants
Show explanations that helped managers act.
Example bullet pointWalked department heads through their monthly spending in short meetings, cutting budget questions to finance.
Organization
Show systems that kept work and files in order.
Example bullet pointFiled the support for every journal entry in a shared folder that auditors could search.
Licenses and certifications
Give them a section of their own, with who issued each one and the year or expiry date.
- Certified Public Accountant (CPA)
- Certified Management Accountant (CMA)
- Certified Internal Auditor (CIA)
Keywords from accountant job postings
Use the ones that are true for you, in your bullet points as well as your skills list.
- month-end close
- US GAAP
- reconcile
- financial statements
- audit
- journal entries
- NetSuite
- accruals
- sales tax
Each posting has its own words. Our guide to tailoring your resume to a job description shows how to find them and where to put them.
Where to put your skills
- In a skills section: a short list of the hard skills the posting names, in its words.
- In your bullet points: every skill that matters should show up in something you did, with a result. That is where a hiring manager believes it.
- In your summary: two or three of the skills the job asks for most.
More on choosing them in how to choose and prove the skills on your resume.
Questions
What skills should an accountant put on a resume?
General ledger, month-end close, reconciliations, financial statements, US GAAP or IFRS, audit support, tax filings, your ERP system and advanced Excel, plus accuracy, integrity and clear explanations.
Should I list my progress toward the CPA?
Yes. If you have passed some sections, list them with the date you expect to finish in your certifications section.
How do I show results in accounting?
Use close days, audit adjustments, reconciliations cleared, hours saved through automation and deadlines met.
Put them to work
Start from an accountant resume that already uses these skills, for an invented person, and make it yours in the builder.