11 Bookkeeper Resume Examples [& Templates]

5 Resume Tips for Bookkeepers

No matter what, the most important rule to remember is that the hiring manager is not spending much time reviewing your resume. Thus, you have to make all work and project experiences stand out using numbers—and save the juicy details for your bookkeeper cover letter.

Outside of that, follow these five tips to optimize different sections of your bookkeeper resume:

Bookkeeper job description for resume

It’s not what you want to hear as a job applicant, but it’s the truth. It is worth the time to customize your AI resume depending on the bookkeeper role to which you’re applying.

By including specific experiences or skills mentioned in the job description, you increase your chances of getting an interview by over 25%!

This is one of those things that’s easier to understand when you see an example.

Example: Customize your bookkeeper resume for the job

Work background

This bookkeeper, Stephanie, has three years of experience primarily working in accounts payable while also dabbling in invoicing, sales tax, and financial reporting.

On the first version of her resume, she defines her work experience as a bookkeeper at Feedzai. 

Feedzai

August 2016 – May 2018, New York NY

Bookkeeper

• Efficiently processed all A/P invoices and ensured 100% of approved invoices were paid in full and on-time while maximizing cash flow.
• Oversaw the tracking and reporting of sales tax returns, registering with new states as sales geographies expanded
• Prepared balance sheets, profit and loss, and other financial reports to executive stakeholders to give a clear view of the business

Bookkeeper job description

Here is a quick summary of the job description for what Acme Corp is looking for:

We’re now hiring a Full-Charge Bookkeeper to help us keep growing. Acme Corp is a perfect place to get ahead if you’re excited to be part of a winning team. You’ll be glad you applied to Acme Corp.

This position will start as a remote position until the COVID-19 Pause for NY is lifted. Once lifted, the position will switch to on-site.

Responsibilities:

• Responsible for full-cycle accounting duties
• Code and enter vendor expense invoices
• Accounts payable
• Responsible for bank reconciliation of multiple accounts.
• Ensure accuracy in the general ledger
• Responsible for all aspects of client bookkeeping needs

Update the work experience

All in all, the work experience in Stephanie’s resume is pretty relevant for this role at Acme Corp. Still, I would try to incorporate specific keywords from this job description in her resume.

Specifically, I would talk about full-cycle accounting duties, reconciliation, and general ledger experience.

In addition, I would mention specifically coding vendor expense invoices as part of the invoicing bullet point.

So, her updated experience might look like this (changes underlined):

Feedzai

August 2016 – May 2018, New York NY

Bookkeeper

• Efficiently processed and coded vendor expense invoices and ensured 100% of approved invoices were paid in full and on time while maximizing cash flow.
• Performed full-cycle accounting duties, including managing the general ledger and reconciling multiple accounts
• Oversaw the tracking and reporting of sales tax returns, registering with new states as sales geographies expanded
• Prepared balance sheets, profit and loss, and other financial reports to executive stakeholders to give a clear view of the business

Resume skills

The skills section of your resume will help you get through the first automated resume review stage.

Before a human ever looks at your resume an automated system called an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) will score your resume based on whether or not it contains certain keywords.

Your skills section is a great opportunity to include tools you have experience with specifically mentioned in the job description.

Yes, this means you should update your resume for each bookkeeper role to which you apply. However, it also means you’ll drastically increase the chances of getting past the first hurdle to getting an interview.

Next, the hiring manager or recruiter will review your resume. A big red flag to a hiring manager is when they see a long list of skills taking up too much real estate in an applicant’s resume.

So, keep your skills section to five to ten of your top skills. As a rule of thumb, only include skills you would be comfortable being asked about in an interview.

Here’s a list of common skills employers are looking for in bookkeepers.

Common resume skills for bookkeepers

Resume objective

Your resume objective is your introductory paragraph for your resume. The reality is 95% of people should omit a resume objective on their bookkeeper resume altogether.

Why? Because most bookkeeper resume objectives are generic and don’t add any evidence for why an applicant deserves an interview.

If you’re going to include a resume objective, be sure to follow these rules to make sure it adds real value to your candidacy:

• Customize it for each job you apply to. Mention the team or company name you’re applying to right in the objective.
• Include numbers. Make a high-level case for the impact you’ve had throughout your career.

Put yourself in the shoes of the hiring manager. When you’re reading your resume objective, ask if it will stand out and add real value to your resume?

Here are a few bookkeeper resume objective examples to inspire you.

Measure your impact

Stating the impact you’ve had in your past roles as a bookkeeper is the quickest and most convincing way to make the case that you deserve an interview.

Luckily, as a bookkeeper, there are a lot of ways you may have had an impact.

These metrics can be very rough estimates.

The goal here is to make the case that you know ultimately what metrics matter as a bookkeeper and you have worked to positively influence them in your past experience.

How can you quantify your impact as a bookkeeper? Here are a few ideas:

Let’s look at a concrete example of what this may look like in practice.

This is a sample work experience before quantifying impact.

WRONG – no quantifiable metrics

Acme Corp
August 2016 – May 2018, New York NY
Full-Charge Bookkeeper

• Managed the full cycle accounting activities for the company, which grew
• Evaluated and reviewed processes for onboarding vendors, saving in annual costs while improving bookkeeping efficiency
• Processed accounts payable and maintained a scalable system for employee expense reporting

Now, here’s the same exact experience, but the impact of these work projects is quantified. Notice the difference?

RIGHT – quantifiable impact

Acme Corp
August 2016 – May 2018, New York NY
Full-Charge Bookkeeper

• Managed the full cycle accounting activities for the company, which grew to over $8M in annual revenue
• Evaluated and reviewed processes for onboarding vendors, saving $800,000 in annual costs while improving bookkeeping efficiency by 11%
• Processed accounts payable and maintained a scalable system for employee expense reporting as the company grew to 32 employees

Including these metrics accomplishes two major things:

There you have it; the major rules you should follow on your bookkeeper resume. Applying to jobs can be soul-draining, so congratulate yourself on taking the big first step of creating or updating your resume.

You’ve got this!