Accountant resume guide

What to emphasize

• Credentials near the top.
• Close timeline improvements and controls.
• Systems (NetSuite, SAP, QuickBooks).
• Audit, tax, or FP&A adjacency if true.

Skills to feature

GAAP · Month-end close · Reconciliations · ERP · Excel · Audit support

Only list skills you can discuss. Use Lynt’s tailoring tool to mirror honest language from each job description, then verify structure with the ATS checker.

Common mistakes

• Generic duties
• Missing CPA status
• No systems

Example accountant resume bullet points

Each of these follows the same shape: what you did, how you did it, and what changed as a result. Swap the specifics for your own; keep the structure.

• Closed the books in four business days, down from nine, by standardising the reconciliation checklist and moving accruals to a schedule.
• Found and corrected a revenue-recognition error affecting 14 contracts, restating $340K before the external audit rather than during it.
• Owned the year-end audit workpapers for a $60M-revenue entity, clearing the audit with no adjusting entries.
• Automated the fixed-asset depreciation roll-forward in Excel and NetSuite, removing a recurring two-day manual task.
• Rebuilt the intercompany elimination process across four subsidiaries, cutting consolidation errors to zero for six consecutive quarters.

ATS keywords for accountant resumes

Parsers match plain strings, so spell acronyms out at least once. Only include a term if your experience backs it up.

• accountant
• GAAP
• month-end close
• account reconciliation
• general ledger
• accounts payable
• accounts receivable
• financial reporting
• audit support
• QuickBooks
• NetSuite
• journal entries

Action verbs that fit

Reconciled · Closed · Audited · Prepared · Reviewed · Corrected · Automated · Consolidated · Forecast · Documented

Certifications worth listing

CPA

The single biggest lever in this field. If you are a candidate, say so; if you have passed sections, say which.

CMA

Strong signal for corporate and management accounting tracks rather than public practice.