Bookkeeping Skills List, How To Become A Good Bookkeeper

Bookkeeping Skills List, How To Become A Good Bookkeeper

Here’s a list of bookkeeping skills to add to your resume when applying for jobs. Bookkeepers and accountants often possess similar sets of skills, but many states govern whether you can call yourself one or the other.

Bookkeepers often start from a data-entry level, maintaining a business’s financial records and documenting its transactions.

Bookkeepers can add certifications to their resumes, from college programs to professional organization certifications, such as the American Institute of Professional Bookkeepers (AIPB) and the National Association of Certified Public Bookkeepers (NACPB).

If you’re new to bookkeeping, we show you the ropes with a helpful bookkeeping and accounting tutorial. If you’re ready to apply for jobs, the below skills will get you started in crafting a bookkeeping-specific resume.

Skills will vary based on the job for which you’re applying, so also review our list of skills listed by job and type of skill.

Basic Accounting and Bookkeeping Skills

Accounting skills are the foundation for bookkeeping since you are maintaining the financial books for the business. You need to know your way around debits and credits, to say the least. Any additional skills you can add will give your resume a boost.

Accounting
Accounts Payable
Accounts Receivable
Accrual Accounting
Auditing
Balance Sheets
Bank Deposits
Bank Reconciliation
Debits and Credits
Deferral Transactions
Depreciation
Financial Statements
General Ledger
Inventory Transactions
Nonprofit Accounting
Journal Entries
Notes

Payroll Accounting Skills

If the business has even one employee, and that includes you, it has to deal with payroll bookkeeping and accounting. Employers will be looking for skills that include these.

Benefits Calculation
Bonuses and Commissions
Depositing Payroll Taxes
Overtime
Payroll Journal Entries
Payroll Tax Calculations
Reporting Payroll Taxes
Wage and Salary Calculation
Withholding

Vendor and Customer Skills

Managing transactions and the flow of cash is a critical bookkeeping function.

Billing
Customer Relations
Invoicing
Monetary Exchange
Payments
Vendor Relations

Computer and Technology Skills

As a bookkeeper, your technical skill set will almost always need to include familiarity or expertise with some form of computer software.

Accounting Software
Computer
FreshBooks
Google Docs
Less Accounting
Microsoft Office
QuickBooks
Quicken
Sage
Spreadsheets, Excel
Tax Software
Wave Accounting
ZoHo Books

Soft Skills

Soft skills are often called people or interpersonal skills, but they’re more than that. They also include your “emotional intelligence” and your ability to understand situations and respond in a way that produces the best results.

Attention to Detail
Continuous Learning
Critical Thinking
Decision Making
Detail Oriented
Error Correction
Finding Information
Job Task Planning and Organizing
Oral Communication
Problem Solving
Significant Use of Memory
Supervising
Working With Others
Written Communications

Hard Skills and Proficiency With Numbers

Hard skills are skills you can learn through study or skills that you can easily quantify. These are part of your technical skill set and demonstrate your ability to perform specific tasks.