INDUSTRY STATS
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bookkeeper positions are at a -3% growth rate, which is negative. With that said, there are currently 1,620,000 jobs in the market right now. The total number of jobs is expected to decrease by -48,100 to 1,571,900 in the period of 2020-30.
What’s more, the median annual wage for the Bookkeeper jobs was $42,410 in May 2020. The lowest 10% earned less than $27,050, and the highest 10% more than $63,900.
Our conclusion? The Bookkeeper job market is facing competition due to decreasing demand.
Top Bookkeeper sections that make the best resume
- Header
- Professional summary
- Experience (with numbers and results)
- Relevant skills
- Education
- Certifications
How to write a Bookkeeper resume experience section
Bookkeeper Resume’s Job Experience Checklist:
- Use 4-6 bullet points per job title;
- Don’t go further than a decade behind when describing your job history, unless you’re applying for an executive position;
- Combine job responsibilities as well as achievements with numbers in results when you describe your past work;
- Start each sentence with a power verb and avoid overused buzzwords;
- Use either C-A-R or S-T-A-R methodology, when describing your experience.
The work experience samples below come from real Bookkeeper resumes that got people hired at top companies. You can use them as an inspiration to build your own resume:
- General bookkeeping
- Bank and credits reconciliation
- Accounts receivable / Accounts payable
- General ledger maintenance
- Ad-hoc reports
- Booking General Ledger transactions - accounts payable, AR
- Bank statement reconciliation
- Expense report processing
- Receive and crosscheck invoices to goods receiving logs
- Prepare invoices for data entry and payments
- Prepare, manage & record daily check runs
- Maintain accounts payable and receivable listing
- Payroll, deductions, superannuation guarantee, PAYG and payroll tax payments
- Assisting with quarterly Financial Reports reviews
- Preparation of monthly IAS and quarterly BAS
- Assisting & prepare Individual & Company Income Tax Returns
- Preparations of Financial Statement for Reporting
- Monthly bank reconciliation
- Reviewing, training & mentoring of team members & new bookkeepers
- data entry and preparation of financial reports,
- banking, preparing the BAS statement,
- accounts receivable,
- accounts payable,
- payroll,
- reporting the management and the board, liaising with accountant.
- integrating new members,
- running pastoral groups,
- hospitality and building relationships with members (ages 10-25+).
- data entry and preparation of financial reports
- banking
- preparation of Quarterly BAS statements
- accounts receivable and payable
- payroll
- reporting to management and the board, liaising with accountant.
- Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable
- Management of group of payments, ensures timely payment of current liabilities.
- Manage relationships with all outside vendors and service providers, and maintain current list of approved vendors for reporting purposes.
- Reviewing, coding, and recording vendor invoices and credit card charges; printing checks for signature, using quickbooks.
- Validating documents
- Archiving documents
- Drawing up basic documents
- Organized data in the 1C:Enterprise Platform
- ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- Administrative skills
- Time-management skills
- Boosted accuracy and efficiency by creating and implementing new reporting templates and procedures providing improved and timely report documentation.
- Improved report turnaround time though successful financial and data management protocols implementation.
- Meticulously accounted for revenue, expenses, assets, and liabilities through daily bank reconciliation, accurate invoicing, and accounts receivables timely turnaround.
- Increased revenue through aggressive collection efforts and cash flow management with a keen focus on inventory control
- Efficiently managed petty cash fund to decrease overhead and non-essential spending as well as monitored expense receipt claims for proper approval.
- Maintained day-to-day transactions, invoice preparation, and documentation, and office administration as required.
- Manage general house accounts using Preach Tree accounting system
- Prepare accurate, detailed cost and analysis reports for board meetings
- Organize information and prepare for annual audit
- Coordinated preparation of reports and analyzed data
- Produced and distributed over 30 weekly correspondence memos, letters and forms
- Provided customer support and solved supplier requests
- Ordered office and warehouse supplies
- Managed all financial transactions, posting debits or credits, and producing financial statements.
- Reached 15% increase in satisfying overdue accounts.
- Researched and resolved billing and collections dispute.
- We catered to different types of companies, from restaurant industry to construction companies.
- As a company we were responsible to file any weekly, monthly, and/or quarterly reports on time to meet our deadlines.
- Created profit and loss statements, balanced out books, filed Tax returns.
- I as the office manager made sure all associates had every tool accessible to them to achieve efficiency and reach deadlines.
- Learning new softwares
- Working with different types of clients
- Allowing me to apply my skills and education in to practise.
- Only working on Friday mornings
- Manage payroll of the company
- Accurate with QuickBooks computer program
- Excellent skills at data entry
- Organized and Detail oriented with reciepts
- Performed entry of accounting information into database (QuickBooks Pro, Peachtree),
- Bank and Credit Card reconciliation, resolved discrepancies,
- Account receivable transactions, including: invoicing, collections, payment receipt, and posting,
- Account payable transactions, including: check generation, matching purchase orders against invoices, and reconciling vendor statement,
- Completed bookkeeping and filing tasks to implement a more efficient recordkeeping system
- Reduced time required to transfer ownership of titles at the point of sale
- Designed and advertised online ads for all inventory which lead to an increase in sales
- Supervised office & production staff, and oversaw production dept., which included mailing out over 1 million surveys a year and hundreds of packages.
- In charge of purchasing supplies and inventory for mailing out surveys.
- Took over accounting tasks from CEO, which included all aspects of AP and PR including all associated tax filings (W2s, 1099s, etc.)
- Go to person for customer finance related queries
- Reconciliaition
- Responding to Customer support tickets
- Assisting with month-end as required
- Generation of invoices to send to customers
- Financial Modelling to find risks and to save costs
- Accounts payables and receivables
- Meet agreed upon KPI’s
- Helping improve efficiency of TourRadar
- Managed bookkeeping including invoices, bills, banking, etc
- Successfully filed tax returns before due date
- Saved 5% on taxes by managing and tracking expenses
PRO TIP
Make sure to relate your experience to your job description, but never lie. That’s not tolerated and will show up in the face-to-face interview later on.
Action Verbs for your Bookkeeper Resume
Recommended reads:
Bookkeeper Resume Skills’ Tips & Tricks to Impress Recruiters
Resume Skills Section Checklist:
- Ensure your hard skills section (including technologies) are exactly matching the job description.
- Don’t simply list your soft skills. Apply the “show, don’t tell” principle - let your job achievements speak for themselves.
- Find a way to showcase your skills beyond the skills section.
- Your resume’s skill section is important to ATS systems - so don’t skip it.
Top Skills for your Bookkeeper resume
- Windows OS
- Intel Retail
- AMD Retail
- Xero
- QuickBooks
- QBO
- Microsoft Excel
- Scrum
- Linux
- Communication
- Negotiation
- Critical thinking
- Problem solving
- Collaboration
- Flexibitly
- Resilience
- Dedication
- Empathy
PRO TIP
Don’t feel obliged to spend a separate section for your soft skills - you can weave them throughout your job experience or career summary. But, don’t just write empty words - back them with examples.
Recommended reads:
Bookkeeper Resume Header: Tips, Red Flags, and Best Practices
CHECKLIST For Your Bookkeeper Resume Header
- Your name and surname in a legible and larger resume font
- The job title you’re applying for or your current job title as a subheading to your name
- Link to your portfolio or online profile, such as LinkedIn
- Address (City and State for the US; just your city for rest of the world)
- Email address
- Headshot (required or welcomed in the EU; not required and sometimes frowned upon in the US)
Stick to popular email providers such as Gmail or Outlook. And use these professional formats to create your username:
- first.last@gmail.com
- last.first@gmail.com
- firstlast@gmail.com
- f.last@gmail.com
- first.l@gmail.com
Recommended reads:
PRO TIP
Some companies, states, and countries have policies about identifying information like photos on your Bookkeeper resume. Be sure to check all the relevant rules before submitting yours. If you’re in doubt, you can always try contacting the company’s HR department to ask for their policy.
Bookkeeper Resume Summary Best Practices
Checklist: What to include in your Bookkeeper resume summary:
- Years of experience;
- Highlight top 3 skills and proficiencies;
- One big professional accomplishment you’re most proud of, that you can tie with the aforementioned skills;
- Use short, direct sentences - but no more than three - to keep the HRs interested.
Resume Summary Formula:
PRO TIP
Include a link to your portfolio in your resume header. Most companies will require that you include one in your resume, and even if they don’t, it’s an excellent opportunity to directly show them your proudest projects.
Recommended reads:
Listing Your Education, Certifications and Courses
Resume Education Section Checklist:
- Ensure your hard skills section (including technologies) are exactly matching the job description.
- Don’t simply list your soft skills. Apply the “show, don’t tell” principle - let your job achievements speak for themselves.
- Find a way to showcase your skills beyond the skills section.
- Your resume’s skill section is important to ATS systems - so don’t skip it.
Top Certifications for your Bookkeeper resume
Recommended reads:
PRO TIP
There are dozens of certifications that you can claim as a Bookkeeper. But, some are more effective than others. That’s why you mustn’t include every certificate other applicants might have. Try instead to earn and list a few of the difficult ones.
Bookkeeper Resume: Additional Writing & Formatting Tips
There are three basic resume formats you can choose from:
- Reverse-chronological resume format;
- Functional resume format;
- Hybrid (or Combination) resume format;
The most optimal format for your particular case will depend on your years of experience, as well as whether you’re switching industries or not.
Reverse chronological resumes are best suited for experienced individuals who are sticking to their industry. The experience section takes a central place, and its bullets contain your responsibilities and achievements, coupled with numbers and results.
Functional resumes are used by less experienced jobseekers or career changers. Note that it’s not a format that recruiters prefer, as most are used to the classic chronological alignment. Instead of a list of job titles, functional resumes focus on your skills, and through what experiences you gained them.
Hybrid resumes are great for both experienced and entry-level candidates, as well as career changers. They combine the best of both worlds - most often in a double column format, where one side of the content is focused on your experience, whereas the other - on your skills, strengths, and proudest moments.
Bookkeeper Resume Summary best practices
Here are more resume tips regarding your layout and style:
- Clear and legible 12p resume font size;
- Use 10’’ resume margins - that’s default for a great resume design;
- Use a one-page template resume length if you’ve got less than 10 years of experience; otherwise, opt for a two-page resume;
- Save your resume as PDF before sending it to the recruiter.
To take it a step further, check out how your resume can stand out without leaning too much on the creative side.
Recommended reads:
PRO TIP
Sometimes you’ll want to go after a job which requires more experience than you have. Instead of using a typical Bookkeeper resume layout, you can use a creative layout. Getting noticed is the most important challenge and a creative resume layout might help you get invited for an interview as most of other accountants have boring resume designs.
Other sections to include in your resume
Depending on the type of company (corporation or start-up; innovative or traditional), job seniority level and your location, you may want to include more sections to your Bookkeeper resume:
Bookkeeper Resume: How to Make Yours More Creative & Stand Out
When you send your resume to a potential employer, chances are it's the fiftieth one they've seen that day. That's why you need to make your Bookkeeper resume stand out for the right reasons. That means showing your personality, not just your professional experience. Employers are far more likely to remember a candidate who seems like a genuine person and not a robot. Do this by including your passions (which is also a great place to demonstrate skills on a resume), share your favorite books, or even what your usual day looks like.
What Makes a Great Bookkeeper Resume: Key Takeaways
- Choose a resume layout that sends the right message across and fits your current career situation;
- Create a resume header that shows your desired job title, and easy to find contact numbers;
- Be specific about your experience, accomplishments and future goals in your summary;
- Feature detailed metrics and specific examples that show the impact you made in your previous roles when describing your experience;
- List soft skills backed by examples;
- Add all of your technical skills and certifications that you have and match the job description;
- Show off a dash of personality in your resume that will demonstrate your culture fit and the right mix of hard and soft skills.
