Bookkeeper Resume Sample and Top 10 Tips for Writing Yours

Bookkeepers handle clients' financial activities by overseeing, recording, and facilitating incoming and outgoing payments. They help to ensure their client's financial health and stability by preventing costly errors. Understanding how to create a quality bookkeeper resume can help you show prospective employers that you have the skills, experience, and qualifications needed to do your job properly and increase your chances of getting hired. In this article, we share the sections you can include on your bookkeeper resume, skills to emphasize, tips for writing your resume, and provide a bookkeeper resume sample.

Read more: How To Become a Bookkeeper With Examples of Important Technical, Hard and Soft Skills

Sections to include in your bookkeeper resume

Here are the sections you can consider including in your bookkeeper resume:

Header

The header should provide your name, location, phone number, and email address. This section should be concise and only include necessary information. Adding anything else can make it difficult for the reader to find your contact information.

Example:

Jason Mattiel
Vancouver, BC
(555) 555-5555
jmattiel@email.com

Summary

This section provides a brief description of why you're the most qualified candidate for the position. Your summary should be direct and focus only on your relevant skills, qualifications, and industry experience. The summary serves to capture the hiring manager's attention, helping to differentiate your resume from the other candidates'.

Example: Meticulous bookkeeper with over seven years of experience managing incoming and outgoing payments. Strives to reduce debt, maximize profits, and maintain professional relationships with clients and account holders. Proven history of identifying and resolving financial discrepancies, leading to fewer losses and more favourable financial outcomes.

Education

The education portion of your resume proves to the hiring manager that you possess the training and education you need to perform your job at a high level. This is where you'll include all completed degrees, diplomas, certifications, training, and other relevant educational credentials. When listing your educational history, be sure to include the date you completed the program, the facilitating organization, and the name of the program.

Example:

Golden Oak College, Sept 2019 - May 2020
Bachelor in Business Administration (Accounting)

Experience

Each entry to the experience section of your resume should include the company name, your position title, dates you worked there, and a point-form summary of your primary responsibilities. When possible, use data and numbers to point to specific results you were able to generate for the company.

Example:

Blenberg Properties, Bookkeeper
Oct '17 - Current

• Oversee accounts receivable for 50-unit commercial office building

• Created a new system to check ageing reports more frequently, quickly identifying and tracking delinquent accounts, which reduced monthly outstanding debt by 50%

• Formed professional relationships with tenants, responding to account inquiries as needed.

• Track and update tax and insurance documentation for 40+ vendors.

Skills

The skills section on your resume is used to show the hiring manager that you have the skills required to efficiently complete the tasks required for the role. There are both hard skills and soft skills. Hard skills are measurable talents and abilities that directly relate to the job you're applying for. For example, hard skills could express your competency with a particular type of software.

Soft skills are slightly more abstract and can be applied to many areas of life beyond the job you're applying for. These include the ability to work well with others or an aptitude for solving problems under pressure. Adding both hard and soft skills to your resume shows that you have the ability to do good work.

Read more: What's the Difference Between Hard Skills and Soft Skills?

Bookkeeper resume sample

Here's an example of a well-structured bookkeeper resume:

Jason Mattiel
Vancouver, BC
(555) 555-5555
jmattiel@email.com

Executive Summary
Meticulous bookkeeper with over seven years of experience managing incoming and outgoing payments. Strives to reduce debt, maximize profits, and maintain professional relationships with clients and account holders. Proven history of identifying and resolving financial discrepancies, leading to fewer losses and more favourable financial outcomes.

Education
Golden Oak College, Sept '12 - May '15
Bachelor in Business Administration (Accounting)

Experience
Blenberg Properties, Bookkeeper (Oct. 2017 - Current)

• Oversee accounts receivable for 50-unit commercial office building

• Created a new system to check ageing reports more frequently, quickly identifying and tracking delinquent accounts, which reduced monthly outstanding debt by 50%

• Formed professional relationships with tenants, responding to account inquiries as needed

• Track and update tax and insurance documentation for 40+ vendors

Greenfelton Retail, Bookkeeper (Nov. 2014 - Sept. 2017)

• Performed weekly reconciliations for three bank accounts, ensuring accurate records and identifying inconsistencies.

• Generated reports, including income statements and balance sheets.

• Prepared and delivered bank deposits totalling ∼ $65K each.

• Processed monthly payroll

• Maintained current and formed new professional supplier relationships

J & JJ Sales, Bookkeeper Internship (May 2014 - Oct. 2014)

• Recorded new inventory and performed scheduled cost reviews, reducing inventory costs by 10%

• Managed sales tax returns tracking and reporting to comply with government regulations.

• Improved bank conciliation processes, helping to reduce error rate by 7%

• Assisted in the creation of company-wide bookkeepers' best practices document

Skills

• Quickbooks accounting software

• Data entry

• Accounts payable

• Accounts receivable invoicing

• Financial statements

• Tax calculations

Tips for your bookkeeper resume

Here are a few tips to help you create a strong bookkeeper resume:

• Specify the type of bookkeeping you do. Hiring managers typically look for candidates who can perform either single or double-entry bookkeeping. Be sure to include which of these you're proficient in on your resume and also add any industry-specific bookkeeping experience.

• Include a summary. Hiring managers often look through dozens of resumes to fill a position. A strong summary helps yours stand out and increases the chance of you getting selected for an interview and should focus on relevant skills, qualifications, and experience.

• Highlight in-demand bookkeeping skills. Adding a skills section on your resume helps show hiring managers the tools at your disposal to help you do your job. Some specific bookkeeper skills to add to your resume include accounting, balance sheets, auditing, accounts payable and receivable, and invoicing.

• Include certifications. If you have any certifications or additional training related to bookkeeping, make sure to include them on your resume. The Certified Public Bookkeeper (CPB) is the most widely recognized bookkeeping certification.

• Emphasize relevant experience. This is where you share information about bookkeeping roles you've held in the past. If possible, lead with experience in the same industry as the role you're applying for.

• Include quantifiable achievements. It is best to use hard numbers to highlight your top achievements. For example, instead of saying, "Implemented systems to help reduce outstanding debt," you could say, "implemented systems to reduce outstanding debt by 50%."

• Select the right resume format. If you have prior bookkeeping experience, you might choose a chronological resume format to show hiring managers what you've accomplished up to now in your career. If you're just starting out as a bookkeeper, it's better to use a functional resume format.

• Keep it concise. Before adding each sentence to your resume, ask yourself if the information you're providing lets the hiring manager know why you're a good fit for this role. Try to avoid anything like hobby or interests sections that don't directly support your case for getting hired.

• Have someone review it. Getting someone to review your resume helps avoid any editorial bias or mistakes. If possible, enlist the help of someone in a similar role as the one you're applying for to review your resume.

Related: What Is the Standard Canadian Resume Format (With 7 Tips)

Skills for a bookkeeper resume

Below is a list of relevant skills that are appropriate for a bookkeeper resume:

Hard skills for bookkeepers

Here are the hard skills you can consider adding to your bookkeeper resume:

• accounts payable

• accounts receivable invoicing

• financial statements

• journal entries

• general ledger

• tax calculations

• billing

• data entry

• reconciling

• vendor management

• account maintenance

• deposits

• word processing

• accounting software

• spreadsheets

Soft skills for bookkeepers

Here are some of the soft skills you can consider using on your bookkeeper resume:

• attention to detail

• dependable

• self-motivated

• timely

• problem-solving

• teamwork

• interpersonal skills

• critical thinking

• organization

• communication

• quick thinking

Please note that none of the companies mentioned in this article are affiliated with Indeed.