Most general ledger accounting resume drafts fail because they list month-end tasks without proving accuracy, control, or business impact. That costs you in ATS screening, fast recruiter scans, and crowded applicant pools where only results get interviews.
A strong resume shows what changed because of your work. Knowing how to make your resume stand out means you should highlight faster closes, fewer reconciling items, cleaner audits, reduced write-offs, improved forecast variance, stronger controls, and larger scopes like multi-entity consolidations and higher journal volumes.
Key takeaways
- Quantify close-cycle speed, reconciliation accuracy, and audit outcomes instead of listing routine duties.
- Mirror the job posting's exact ERP platforms, standards, and close terminology throughout your resume.
- Use reverse-chronological format for deep experience and hybrid format for career changers.
- Place skills above experience if you're junior, below experience if you're senior.
- Tie every listed skill to a specific action and measurable result in your experience bullets.
- Use AI prompts to sharpen structure and language, then stop before it invents claims.
- Build your resume with Enhancv to align each section with what general ledger hiring managers prioritize.
How to format a general ledger accounting resume
Recruiters evaluating general ledger accountants prioritize accuracy in financial reporting, reconciliation expertise, and proficiency with core accounting systems like SAP, Oracle, or NetSuite. A clean reverse-chronological or hybrid format ensures these signals—along with progression in responsibility and measurable contributions—surface quickly during both ATS parsing and manual review. Choosing the right resume format is essential for making these details easy to find.
I have significant experience in this role—which format should I use?
Use a reverse-chronological format to showcase your depth of general ledger experience and growing ownership over close cycles, reconciliations, and reporting. Do:
- Lead with your most recent role and emphasize scope: number of entities managed, journal entry volume, or chart of accounts complexity.
- Highlight proficiency in role-specific tools and domains such as ERP platforms (SAP, Oracle, NetSuite), GAAP compliance, intercompany accounting, and month-end/year-end close processes.
- Quantify outcomes tied to efficiency, accuracy, or cost impact in every role.
I'm junior or switching into this role—what format works best?
A hybrid format works best, allowing you to lead with relevant accounting skills and certifications while still providing a concise work history that shows applied experience. Do:
- Place a skills section near the top featuring general ledger fundamentals: journal entries, account reconciliations, accruals, GAAP principles, and relevant software.
- Include academic projects, internships, or transitional experience where you performed bookkeeping, reconciliation, or financial analysis tasks.
- Connect every skill to a specific action and result so recruiters can assess your practical readiness.
Why not use a functional resume?
A functional format strips away the timeline context that hiring managers need to verify your hands-on reconciliation experience, close-cycle participation, and progression from basic entries to more complex general ledger responsibilities. When a functional resume might be acceptable:
- You're transitioning from a related field (bookkeeping, accounts payable, or audit) and need to foreground transferable skills while your direct general ledger experience is limited—but you must still tie every listed skill to a specific project, employer, or measurable outcome.
Once you've established a clean, readable format, the next step is deciding which sections to include and how to arrange them to best showcase your general ledger expertise.
What sections should go on a general ledger accounting resume
Recruiters expect a clean, standard resume layout that proves you can own the general ledger close, reconciliations, and financial reporting with accuracy and speed. Understanding which resume sections to include ensures hiring managers find what they need quickly.
Use this structure for maximum clarity:
- Header
- Summary
- Experience
- Skills
- Projects
- Education
- Certifications
- Optional sections: Awards, Leadership, Languages
Strong experience bullets should emphasize measurable close and reporting outcomes, reconciliation accuracy, audit readiness, and the scope of accounts, entities, and systems you supported.
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Once you’ve organized your resume with the right structure and key details, the next step is to write your general ledger accounting resume experience in a way that fits that framework.
How to write your general ledger accounting resume experience
Your work experience section should prove you've managed real accounting cycles, maintained accurate ledgers, and delivered measurable improvements to financial reporting and reconciliation processes. Hiring managers prioritize demonstrated impact—closed periods on time, reduced discrepancies, streamlined workflows—over descriptive task lists that simply restate a job description.
Each entry should include:
- Job title
- Company and location (or remote)
- Dates of employment (month and year)
Three to five concise bullet points showing what you owned, how you executed, and what outcomes you delivered:
- Ownership scope: the general ledger accounts, subledgers, journal entry categories, entity structures, or chart of accounts segments you were directly accountable for maintaining and reconciling.
- Execution approach: the ERP platforms, reconciliation tools, accounting standards, and close procedures you relied on to post entries, resolve variances, and produce accurate trial balances.
- Value improved: the changes you drove in reconciliation accuracy, close-cycle duration, audit readiness, error rates, or compliance posture across the ledger environment.
- Collaboration context: how you partnered with accounts payable, accounts receivable, tax, FP&A, treasury, or external auditors to validate balances, clear intercompany transactions, and support period-end reporting.
- Impact delivered: the financial, operational, or compliance outcomes your work produced—expressed through results such as faster closes, cleaner audits, reduced adjusting entries, or improved reporting reliability rather than routine activity descriptions.
Experience bullet formula
A general ledger accounting experience example
✅ Right example - modern, quantified, specific.
Senior General Ledger Accountant
NorthBridge Health Systems | Chicago, IL
2022–Present
Multi-entity healthcare services organization with $500M annual revenue and a shared services finance team supporting eight operating units.
- Led month-end close in NetSuite for eight entities, cutting close from seven to five business days by standardizing journal entry workflows, implementing close checklists, and automating accruals.
- Reconciled and substantiated 120+ balance sheet accounts monthly using BlackLine, reducing unreconciled items by 40% and clearing aged reconciling items over 90 days from 18 to four.
- Built and maintained fixed asset schedules in NetSuite and Excel, improving depreciation accuracy and reducing audit adjustments by 60% through tighter capitalization thresholds and review controls.
- Partnered with FP&A (financial planning and analysis), revenue cycle, and IT to redesign allocation and intercompany processes, improving cost center accuracy by 15% and eliminating $250K in recurring misclassifications.
- Prepared quarterly financial statement tie-outs and audit support in Workiva, accelerating external audit requests by 30% and strengthening compliance with updated revenue recognition and lease accounting policies.
Now that you've seen what a strong experience entry looks like, the next step is adapting it to match the specific job you're targeting.
How to tailor your general ledger accounting resume experience
Recruiters evaluate your general ledger accounting resume through applicant tracking systems and manual review. Tailoring your resume to the job description increases your chances of passing both.
Ways to tailor your general ledger accounting experience:
- Match ERP platforms like SAP or Oracle listed in the job posting.
- Use the exact reconciliation and close terminology from the description.
- Mirror specific KPIs such as close cycle time or accuracy rates.
- Highlight GAAP or IFRS compliance when the role requires it.
- Include industry experience that aligns with the company's sector.
- Reference journal entry volumes or ledger complexity relevant to the role.
- Emphasize SOX compliance or audit readiness if the posting mentions them.
- Align your workflow descriptions with their month-end close framework.
Tailoring means framing your real accomplishments in language that directly reflects what the employer asked for.
Resume tailoring examples for general ledger accounting
| Job description excerpt | Untailored | Tailored |
|---|---|---|
| Perform monthly close activities including journal entries, account reconciliations, and variance analysis using Oracle ERP | Handled month-end tasks and helped close the books each period. | Executed monthly close in Oracle ERP, posting 200+ journal entries and completing 50 balance sheet reconciliations with under 1% variance per cycle. |
| Maintain and reconcile intercompany accounts across multiple entities, ensuring elimination entries are accurate and compliant with US GAAP | Worked on intercompany transactions and made sure accounts were balanced. | Reconciled intercompany accounts across 12 legal entities, prepared elimination entries, and resolved discrepancies within five business days to maintain US GAAP compliance. |
| Assist with external audit preparation by providing supporting documentation for general ledger balances and ensuring SOX compliance | Helped gather documents for auditors and answered their questions during audit season. | Compiled and organized supporting schedules for 30+ general ledger accounts during annual external audits, contributing to zero material findings across two consecutive SOX compliance cycles. |
Once you’ve aligned your experience with the role’s requirements, quantify your general ledger accounting achievements to show the measurable impact of that work.
How to quantify your general ledger accounting achievements
Quantifying your achievements proves business impact beyond "did the books." Focus on close speed, accuracy, reconciliation volume, compliance outcomes, and cost or risk reduction across entities, accounts, and systems.
Quantifying examples for general ledger accounting
| Metric | Example |
|---|---|
| Close cycle time | "Cut month-end close from seven to five business days by standardizing journal entry checklists and automating recurring entries in NetSuite." |
| Reconciliation accuracy | "Reduced unreconciled balance variances by 85% by implementing BlackLine matching rules and tightening cutoff procedures for bank and intercompany accounts." |
| Volume handled | "Processed and reviewed 420 journal entries per month across three entities, maintaining on-time posting for 98% of entries in SAP." |
| Audit compliance | "Cleared all audit requests with zero repeat findings by improving documentation for revenue and accrual support and responding within two business days." |
| Cost savings | "Saved $48,000 annually by consolidating account reconciliations, removing 60 redundant general ledger accounts, and reducing external support hours by 20%." |
Turn vague job duties into measurable, recruiter-ready resume bullets in seconds with Enhancv's Bullet Point Generator.
Once you've crafted strong bullet points for your experience section, you'll want to apply that same precision to presenting your hard and soft skills on your general ledger accounting resume.
How to list your hard and soft skills on a general ledger accounting resume
Your skills section matters in general ledger accounting because recruiters and an ATS (applicant tracking system) scan them to confirm you can close, reconcile, and report accurately; aim for a balanced mix of hard skills and job-specific soft skills. general ledger accounting roles require a blend of:
- Product strategy and discovery skills.
- Data, analytics, and experimentation skills.
- Delivery, execution, and go-to-market discipline.
- Soft skills.
Your skills section should be:
- Scannable (bullet-style grouping).
- Relevant to the job post.
- Backed by proof in experience bullets.
- Updated with current tools.
Place your skills section:
- Above experience if you're junior or switching careers.
- Below experience if you're mid/senior with strong achievements.
Hard skills
- Month-end close
- Journal entries, accruals
- General ledger reconciliations
- Balance sheet substantiation
- Intercompany accounting
- Fixed assets accounting
- Revenue recognition
- Lease accounting (ASC 842)
- Financial statement preparation
- Variance analysis
- ERP systems: NetSuite, SAP, Oracle
- Excel: PivotTables, XLOOKUP, Power Query
Soft skills
- Own close tasks end-to-end
- Flag risks early and clearly
- Communicate variances to leaders
- Partner with accounts payable and payroll
- Align with finance on deadlines
- Document processes and controls
- Follow up to resolve reconciling items
- Prioritize high-risk accounts first
- Ask targeted questions to unblock work
- Maintain accuracy under tight timelines
- Challenge assumptions with evidence
- Improve close cycle efficiency
How to show your general ledger accounting skills in context
Skills shouldn't live only in a dedicated skills list. Explore resume skills examples to see how top candidates weave competencies throughout their resumes.
They should be demonstrated in:
- Your summary (high-level professional identity)
- Your experience (proof through outcomes)
Here's how that looks in practice.
Summary example
Senior general ledger accountant with 10 years in manufacturing, skilled in month-end close, journal entries, and SAP. Reduced reconciliation errors by 32% through standardized workflows and cross-departmental collaboration.
- Signals senior-level experience clearly
- Names role-relevant tools like SAP
- Leads with a measurable outcome
- Highlights collaboration as a soft skill
Experience example
Senior General Ledger Accountant
Bridgewell Manufacturing Co. | Milwaukee, WI
June 2018–Present
- Managed 120+ monthly journal entries in Oracle ERP, cutting close cycle time from eight days to five.
- Partnered with FP&A to redesign the reconciliation process, eliminating 45% of recurring variance discrepancies.
- Trained four junior accountants on GAAP-compliant procedures, improving first-pass accuracy rates by 27%.
- Every bullet includes a measurable result.
- Skills surface naturally through real accomplishments.
Once you’ve tied your accounting strengths to real tasks and outcomes, the next step is structuring a general ledger accounting resume with no experience so those same strengths still come through clearly.
How do I write a general ledger accounting resume with no experience
Even without full-time experience, you can demonstrate readiness through:
- General ledger accounting class projects
- Accounting internships or externships
- Bookkeeping for student organizations
- Volunteer nonprofit month-end close support
- ERP system labs and simulations
- Accounts payable and receivable support
- Case competitions with financial statements
- Personal budget ledger reconciliation practice
If you're building a resume without work experience, focus on:
- Month-end close steps and outputs
- Journal entries and reconciliations
- General ledger accounting software exposure
- Clean, audit-ready documentation examples
Resume format tip for entry-level general ledger accounting
Use a combination resume format because it highlights relevant skills and projects first, while still showing education and any work history. Do:
- Lead with an accounting projects section.
- List general ledger accounting tools you used.
- Quantify results with time or error rates.
- Add coursework tied to general ledger accounting.
- Use action verbs for each bullet.
- Built a month-end close workbook in Excel, posted twenty journal entries, reconciled three balance sheet accounts, and reduced variances by 18% in a class project.
When you're building your resume without traditional work history, your education section becomes one of the strongest tools for demonstrating your qualifications—so it's worth formatting it strategically.
How to list your education on a general ledger accounting resume
Your education section helps hiring teams confirm you have the foundational accounting knowledge needed for general ledger accounting. It validates your technical training and academic preparation quickly.
Include:
- Degree name
- Institution
- Location
- Graduation year
- Relevant coursework (for juniors or entry-level candidates)
- Honors & GPA (if 3.5 or higher)
Keep dates simple. Avoid listing months or days and use the graduation year only.
Example education entry
Here's a strong education entry tailored to general ledger accounting.
Bachelor of Science in Accounting
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL
Graduated 2021 | GPA: 3.7/4.0
- Relevant Coursework: Intermediate Accounting, Financial Reporting, Cost Accounting, Auditing Principles
- Honors: Dean's List (six semesters), Beta Alpha Psi Accounting Honor Society
How to list your certifications on a general ledger accounting resume
Certifications on your resume show you keep learning, master key tools, and stay current with industry standards in general ledger accounting. They help hiring teams trust your readiness for close, reconciliations, and reporting.
Include:
- Certificate name
- Issuing organization
- Year
- Optional: credential ID or URL
- Place certifications below education when your degree is recent and your certifications support it without adding stronger, role-specific proof.
- Place certifications above education when they are recent, highly relevant to general ledger accounting, or required for the roles you target.
Best certifications for your general ledger accounting resume
- Certified Public Accountant (CPA)
- Certified Management Accountant (CMA)
- Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA)
- Certified Internal Auditor (CIA)
- Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE)
- QuickBooks Certified User
- Microsoft Office Specialist: Excel Associate
Once you’ve positioned your credentials where hiring managers will see them, highlight the value they add in your general ledger accounting resume summary.
How to write your general ledger accounting resume summary
Your resume summary is the first thing a recruiter reads. A strong one instantly frames you as a qualified general ledger accountant worth interviewing.
Keep it to three to four lines, with:
- Your title and total years of general ledger accounting experience.
- Industry focus, such as manufacturing, SaaS, or financial services.
- Core tools like SAP, Oracle, NetSuite, or advanced Excel.
- One or two measurable achievements, such as error reduction or close-cycle improvements.
- Soft skills tied to real outcomes, like cross-team collaboration that streamlined monthly reporting.
PRO TIP
At a junior or mid-level, emphasize your technical skills, software proficiency, and early contributions to the close process. Highlight accuracy, eagerness to learn complex reconciliations, and any efficiency gains you've driven. Avoid vague phrases like "passionate team player" or "detail-oriented professional." Replace them with specific results that prove those qualities instead.
Example summary for a general ledger accounting
General ledger accountant with three years of experience in SaaS and financial services. Skilled in SAP, Oracle, and multi-entity reconciliations. Reduced month-end close time by two days through improved journal entry workflows.
Optimize your resume summary and objective for ATS
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Now that your summary captures your general ledger expertise, make sure your header presents the essential contact and professional details recruiters need to reach you.
What to include in a general ledger accounting resume header
A resume header lists your key contact details and role focus, improving visibility, credibility, and recruiter screening for general ledger accounting positions.
Essential resume header elements
- Full name
- Tailored job title and headline
- Location
- Phone number
- Professional email
- GitHub link
- Portfolio link
A LinkedIn link lets recruiters confirm titles, dates, and employers fast, which supports screening.
Don't include a photo on a general ledger accounting resume unless the role is explicitly front-facing or appearance-dependent.
Keep your header on one to two lines, match your job title to the posting, and use consistent formatting so recruiters can scan it quickly.
General ledger accounting resume header
Jordan Taylor
General Ledger Accountant | Month-End Close, Reconciliations, Financial Reporting
Austin, TX
(512) 555-78XX
jordan.taylor@enhancv.com
github.com/jordantaylor
jordantaylor.com
linkedin.com/in/jordantaylor
Once your header clearly identifies you and your accounting focus, add relevant optional sections to provide more context and support your general ledger qualifications.
Additional sections for general ledger accounting resumes
When your core qualifications match other candidates, well-chosen additional sections can set your general ledger accounting resume apart from the competition.
Consider adding these sections to strengthen your candidacy:
- Languages
- Professional affiliations (e.g., AICPA, IMA)
- Continuing education and professional development
- Software proficiencies
- Volunteer experience in financial literacy or nonprofit accounting
- Publications or presentations on accounting topics
- Awards and recognitions
Beyond strengthening your resume with targeted additional sections, pairing it with a well-crafted cover letter can further set your application apart.
Do general ledger accounting resumes need a cover letter
A cover letter isn't required for general ledger accounting, but it helps in competitive roles or when hiring managers expect one. If you're unsure what a cover letter is and when it adds value, it can make a difference when your resume needs context, or when the role requires tight cross-team coordination.
Use these tips to decide when to include one and what to cover:
- Explain role fit by matching your close process, reconciliations, and month-end cadence to the team's needs.
- Highlight one or two outcomes, such as shortening close timelines, reducing recon variances, or improving audit readiness.
- Show business understanding by referencing the company's revenue model, key users of financial reports, and how general ledger accounting supports decisions.
- Address transitions or non-obvious experience by connecting prior roles, industries, or systems work to general ledger accounting responsibilities.
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Once you’ve decided whether to include a cover letter, the next step is using AI to strengthen your general ledger accounting resume so it aligns with the role and highlights your qualifications.
Using AI to improve your general ledger accounting resume
AI can sharpen your resume's clarity, structure, and impact. It helps you articulate complex general ledger accounting work more effectively. But overuse kills authenticity. Once your content sounds clear and role-aligned, step away from AI. If you're wondering which AI is best for writing resumes, focus on tools that enhance rather than fabricate your experience.
Here are 10 practical prompts to strengthen specific sections of your general ledger accounting resume:
Strengthen your summary
Quantify experience bullets
Tailor skills section
Sharpen action verbs
Refine project descriptions
Align education details
Highlight certifications
Eliminate redundancy
Improve technical context
Tighten bullet structure
Conclusion
A strong general ledger accounting resume proves impact with measurable outcomes, like faster close cycles, fewer reconciling items, and cleaner audit results. It highlights role-specific skills, including account reconciliations, journal entries, accruals, and variance analysis.
Keep your general ledger accounting resume structured and easy to scan, with clear sections and consistent formatting. This approach shows readiness for today’s hiring market and near-future expectations, where accuracy, speed, and strong controls matter.
