Here are 9 accounting skills that hiring managers love seeing on resumes submitted for accountant jobs:
- Accounting certifications
- Industry principles
- Financial regulations
- Accounting processes
- Bookkeeping software
- Communication skills
- Customer service
- Attention to detail
- Analytical and problem solving skills
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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:
- Certified Public Accountant (CPA)
- Certified Management Accountant (CMA)
- Certified Internal Auditor (CIA)
- Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA)
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:
- Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB)
- Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB)
- International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)
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:
- Payroll: QuickBooks, ADP, and Paychex
- Analytics: Oracle Essbase and Mosaic Tech
- Enterprise resource planning (ERP): Microsoft Dynamics and SAP ERP
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:
- Verbal communication
- Public speaking
- Remote communication (Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom)
- Presentation skills
- Written communication
- Active listening
Even though accounting is a highly technical field, you must include a good mix of hard and soft skills on your resume to show that you’ll fit your target company’s culture.
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:
- Interpersonal skills
- Patience
- Empathy
- Politeness
- Language skills
- Upselling
- Conflict resolution
- Confidence
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:
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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:
- Read the job description
- Circle the skills mentioned
- Check for language that indicates the company prioritizes certain skills — for example, many job ads differentiate between minimum and preferred requirements
- Emphasize any preferred skills you have, or list your basic accounting skills and use soft skills to show you can quickly learn preferred skills
Adding skills from the job ad is essential because many companies use applicant tracking systems (ATS) to filter applications based on keywords from the job description.
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)
More skills-related resources
Here are some additional skills-related resources to help you write your accounting resume.

Aaron Case, CPRW
Content Specialist & Resume Expert (CPRW)
Aaron Case is a Senior Content Writer & Certified Resume Expert (CPRW) at Resume Genius. Job seekers around the world have landed fulfilling work thanks to Aaron’s thoughtful career advice, which has been showcased in publications like MSN, CareerAddict, Ladders, Best Colleges, Ivy Exec, Capitalism.com, and vidIQ. A native New Yorker who’s spent the past decade in Taiwan, Aaron has a BS in English & Communications from Liberty University bolstered by a professional credential from UC Berkeley. He’s collected practical experience while following various career paths, and he enjoys sharing the resulting insights with everyone.
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