Staff Accountant Resume [With Examples]

Resumes

Jul 31

Whether you’ve been working in accounts payable for years or you recently obtained your accounting degree, you may be asking yourself, “How do I get a Staff Accountant job?” After recruiting Staff Accountants for nearly ten years, I can tell you, you’re going to need a really good Staff Accountant resume. I know that can feel like a tall order when may not have much (or any) Staff Accountant experience, but this article will make it a bit easier.

In this article, I’ll cover:

What is a Staff Accountant, including duties and salary potential?

The difference between a Staff Accountant and a Senior Accountant.

Tips to write a Staff Accountant Resume.

The best resume formats for an Accountant resume.

Writing a Staff Accountant resume summary.

Work experience examples for a Staff Accountant resume.

Resume bullets for a Staff Accountant Resume.

Staff Accountant Skills and how to write them in your resume.

What is a Staff Accountant?

First, let’s get a working definition of what a Staff Accountant is and what they do. In short, a Staff Accountant is an entry-level member of the accounting department that supports transactional accounting activities and maintains financial records.

Staff Accountant Duties

There’s going to be some variation from company to company but in general, you will probably do some of the following tasks:

Reconcile balance sheet accounts and bank accounts. You may even perform some analysis on those reconciliations.
Prepare month-end or year-end closing entries.
Manage fixed asset depreciation and accrual accounts.
Aid in the production of financial statements. You may even perform some analysis on these too. These include preparing income statements, profit and loss statements, and statements of cash flow.
Assisting in budget preparation and analyzing budget to actual performance.
Interfacing with external auditors. Although you probably won’t have a major role, you may be asked questions about your work.
Process sales and use tax. Larger organizations will have a dedicated person for this, but in smaller ones, you could do it too.
File property tax documents, or help complete 571-L forms.
Process accounts payable. Some organizations may have you serve as the backup, others have you do it alongside your other duties.
Reconciling accounts payable and accounts receivable subledgers
Prepare aging schedules for accounts receivable and accounts payable.
Prepare bank deposits and other accounts receivable functions.
Analyzing customer credit data
Manage PCard programs or travel and expense reimbursements.
And finally, you may even assist with payroll in some capacity.

Will you do all of these items in every Staff Accountant job? Probably not, but over the past ten years, these are the most common things hiring teams have asked me for when recruiting candidates.

Please keep in mind that these are related to roles in private industry, not public accounting. A staff-level accountant in public accounting is going to look much different.

Staff Accountant Salary

I know this is a resume guide, but you should probably know what a Staff Accountant gets paid before you pull the trigger and decide to write this resume, let alone start down this career path. Part of Optim Recruiting’s advisory services helps recruiting firms produce annual salary guides. I’ve been a part of many salary guide productions from research to publication.

Salaries of Staff Accountants based on actual offers, not self-inputted data you find on Glassdoor, range typically between $50,000 per year on the low end to $70,000 per year on the high end. Of course, this is going to vary based on where you live. But Staff Accountants have seen tremendous salary growth over the years. When I first started recruiting Staff Accountants for private industry companies back in 2015, average salaries were much closer to $44,000 per year.

Staff Accountant vs Senior Accountant

What is the difference between a staff accountant and a senior accountant? This is a very relevant question because it will impact what you write in your resume. In my experience, most people make it to the Senior level within five to seven years. The really ambitious become a Senior Accountant after two to three years. But you’re going to be trading valuable parts of your life to make that happen.

The big differences in a Senior Accountant role are usually:

They are more involved with the close in terms of analysis and making recommendations to improve the closing checklist.
They work on more complex balance sheet accounts. Staff Accountants usually work on things like prepaids, cash, bank reconciliations, accrued payroll, and paid time off. Those are the easy ones. A Senior Accountant may work with things like roll forwards, AR allowances, warranty accruals, lease obligations, or even debt.
Senior Accountants work with estimation accounts like slow and obsolete moving inventory, capitalization of intellectual property, bad debt, sales returns, and allowances. All of these accounts require them to accumulate data and calculate an estimate, usually based on some type of historical trend.
They do more analysis such as trend analysis, budget to actual, and they may even take shots at variance analysis.
Some may review samples during an external audit and do some analysis for auditors.
They handle foreign currency translations.
They do some consolidation work and manage intercompany accounts.

If you’ve done several of these things, you may wish to write a resume that targets Senior roles and not Staff. If you haven’t done any of these things, these are the items you want to start learning from your manager so that you can later position yourself for career advancement.

Assuming that you’re still writing a Staff Accountant resume and not a Senior Accountant one, let’s dive into putting one together.

Preparing to Write a Staff Accountant Resume

Before we dive into examples and formatting for your accounting resume, let’s cover some very important tips and advice. If you implement what I’m about to share as you write your resume, you’ll easily have a resume that’s in the top 15% of those out there. Trust me, I’ve seen a lot of them.

Think Deeper

I’ve reviewed over 20,000 Staff Accountant resumes throughout my career if not more. They always fail to pique hiring teams’ interest for a couple of reasons. The biggest one is that they are surface level.

You have to think deeper about why each Staff Accountant's responsibilities matter, otherwise, you look like everyone else writing things like:

Booking journal entries
Matching and coding invoices
Reconciling fixed asset accounts

Everyone says this stuff, but that’s not why you matter. That’s not why your job matters. What problems do these things solve? What problems do you solve because you’re the one doing it and not someone else (who may be worse at the job)? You’ve got to think deeper.

Instead, think about how your work impacts the big picture. You could come up with things like:

Avoiding duplicate payments
Ensuring supply chains aren’t disrupted because you pay vendors on time while conserving as much cash as possible
Making the Controller’s job easier by properly supporting your journal entries

Provide Clarity

Leave nothing relevant to the imagination. Clarity is your friend. If someone has to interpret what your sentence means or what you did in the past, that’s not a good sign. My motto is, “If you confuse, you lose.”

Here’s what I mean. There is a big difference between the person who processed 10 invoices per week in their AP role vs the person who processed 1,000 per week. Both match and code invoices, but one can handle way more volume.

Or the person with the summer college job who “assisted managers in overcoming challenges and persevered when workloads were greater than expected” vs the one who “assisted managers with rerouting unused trucks on 12 projects where workloads were greater than anticipated, ensuring 92% of all moves were completed on time.”

Focus on Employers and Your Words

Employers only consider interviewing you when they read or hear words that help them understand how you solve their problems. That typically involves saving them money, making them money, or making your manager’s job easier.

Every time you want to write something in your resume, ask yourself, “So what?” It’s easy to just start writing about ourselves way too much and focus on your future employer’s problems way too little. You may be proud of many things, but if they don’t help your future employer, it may be best to leave them off your resume.

Always write with purpose and intention. If you don’t know why you are writing something, don’t write it.

What is the Best Resume Format for a Staff Accountant

For the vast majority of professionals writing a Staff Accountant resume, using a reverse-chronological format will make the most sense. This format is the most common resume format and is preferred by most hiring managers and recruiters.

It typically opens with a resume summary, followed by your work experience, starting with your most recent job and working chronologically backward.

Another option is a hybrid or combination resume. I often use this for recent college graduates who may lack accounting experience but have relevant accounting projects or internships to display. I still keep the reverse chronological order of the timelines, but I may create multiple sections and subtitles instead of putting it all together under one work experience heading.

For example, I may open with a resume summary, list your education, then use a section titled Accounting Experience that is filled with projects, followed by work experience which may be non-accounting related.

Here’s what that hybrid resume may look like. You can access this exact same template in my book, “The Staff Accountant Resume” and quickly adapt it to make it your own.

Staff Accountant Resume Template

You can start from scratch in Microsoft Word or Google Docs, but using a resume template will make it much easier. Using the right resume template for your Staff Accountant resume will:

save you time and effort so that you’re not recreating the wheel every time you write a resume (and yes, you may write a couple of versions)
give you a professional and polished look (minor detail compared to content, but important)
ensure your formatting and layout is consistent
provide a structure for your thoughts
help you brainstorm content for your own resume if it is pre-filled

You can access two Staff Accountant Resume Templates with pre-filled information with the purchase of my book, The Staff Accountant Resume. There is one template for professionals with prior accounting experience and one for recent college graduates who may have little to no real-world experience. Both are prefilled with information to help you create your own relevant resume.

Buy the Book Today

The Staff Accountant Resume

$14.99

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If you use a template from someone else, I highly recommend reading my Resume Template Guide first. Not all templates are equal and most are written by graphic designers or English majors. You want your template written by someone who understands the hiring process and has been a part of it recently.

Accountant Resume Summary

Depending on your background, your resume summary could be two to three lines of text or it could be as simple as a one-liner.

Staff Accountant Resume Summary - Experienced

If you have a few years of accounting experience, then my standard resume summary formula can work well for you. It is as follows:

Over X years of experience (doing X, Y, and Z) to (solve this problem).

In the example below you can see the formula in action. In addition, we chose to include three relevant skills at the top. I’ll talk more about skills and skill resume sections later in this article. But this is one example of how you could incorporate them in an entry-level resume.

If you struggle with identifying problems that you solve, pick up a copy of my book, The Staff Accountant. Inside I break down the top four problems hiring teams have told me they need their Staff Accountants to help them solve.

Staff Accountant Qualifications

To take this resume a step further, you could even include a Key Qualifications Section below this to show that you are good at the things you mentioned in your summary. Here’s what that could look like for this example.

Staff Accountant Resume Summary - Recent Graduate (Minimal Experience)

I want to start this section out with a fact that many recent graduates overlook. You probably have more experience than you think. Experience doesn’t come only from working in a Staff Accountant job at a company. You can obtain accounting experience through school projects, freelancing, and internships. And because this is an entry-level job, you should be able to highlight transferable skills from non-accounting jobs as well. Think about that as you begin writing your resume.

Now that I’ve got that out of the way, you can consider writing a shorter resume summary if you fall into this category of applicants. Let’s face it, you probably don’t have an extensive list of accounting problems to talk about unless you’ve participated in a couple of really good internships (not the ones where they only let you pick up the coffee orders).

Instead of following the formula I gave for more experienced professionals, simply state that you are a recent graduate with one year of accounting experience. This tells the hiring team everything they need to know. If they truly are looking for an entry-level person with a degree and some experience - you’re the guy or gal.

Here’s what it could look like if you’re using one of my templates. It’s clean, to the point, and I follow up with an education section to continue the story about being a recent accounting graduate.

Work Experience Examples for Staff Accountants

Most likely you were taught to list each of your jobs and bullet points of duties beneath each one. But modern resumes deserve a more nuanced approach. I want to be clear, there isn’t one right way to write a resume, but I prefer a story-based format that involves a brief sentence giving context to each job followed by a few bullet points that show you were really good at the job.

To make this easier I’m going to give you some formulas to write your information.

Staff Accountant Job Summary Sample

Start each job with a brief opening describing the job with context. You can think of this as each job’s plot line (if this was a movie). There are four components to a story-based job summary. They are:

How you obtained the job
What problem you hired to solve
The type of company (size, revenue, ownership type, anything relevant)
What you were responsible for (with context)

Here’s a job summary example from an AP Specialist writing a Staff Accountant resume. Don’t forget, you can get this full resume and another sample resume with my Staff Accountant Resume Guide Book.

Staff Accountant Work Experience Example

In this example, the individual combined a few elements, but you can see them all play out.

No Accounting Experience Job Summary Example

But what about someone who doesn’t have any on-the-job accounting experience? You can still use the formula. Here’s an example of someone who worked a summer job during college moving furniture.

No experience staff accountant resume example

In this example, you can see how the person obtained the job (they literally applied and were hired), the problem they solve (managing regional moves for 20 customers per month), and the responsibilities they held.

Notice that it’s not a complete list of everything they did in this job. Rather, it’s a snapshot of the relevant responsibilities that show transferable skills and traits.

Staff Accountant Resume Bullet Points

After you’ve written your job summary for each job, you’ll want to back up your claims with examples that show you were good at each of your jobs. Remember, every one qualified is going to most likely write similar material in their resume. But it’s one thing to do something. It’s another thing to do it well and be good at it. Your resume bullet points should be the place where you show the hiring team that you’re good at being a Staff Accountant.

Ask yourself, “How can I show someone that I was good at this or that I am this type of person?” Show, don’t tell.

Staff Accountant Resume Bullet Point Example

Here’s an example. Let’s say your last job was as an AP Specialist and you want to show that you’re efficient, that you take the initiative, and that you can run circles around others when it comes to productivity.

Perhaps you helped your manager design a new process for payables that enabled you and everyone else to process more invoices. You could write a bullet point that looks like this.

Designed and obtained management buy-in for an AP process that enabled the department to accurately process 200 more invoices per week without increasing headcount or overhead.

That sentence shows that you are efficient at your work, that you can get others to buy into your ideas, that you take initiative, and that you possess solid communication abilities. It shows it rather than tells it. Most people will write something like “Took the initiative to come up with an efficient process for invoices.” But that sentence wouldn’t do. It’s weak.

What makes our bullet point strong is this:

It is crystal clear about what you did.
It provides context with numbers (200 invoices). The scope is clear.
It shows why you matter and the impact of your work (200 more invoices without increasing costs).
It shows traits and transferable skills (convincing others to get on board and process improvement).

How to Come up With Resume Bullet Points

This can often be a struggle for professionals and is one of the hardest parts of writing a great resume. In my book, "The Staff Accountant Resume,” I lay out 18 resume bullet point examples for Staff Accountants, even some that are from non-accounting jobs.

Short of buying the book, here are four other ways you can think about how to provide evidence in your bullet points.

Think of a bad employee and compared to you, how much would you save them?
Think of any time that you saved by accomplishing more in less time or by avoiding penalties because you met deadlines.
Think of any money you saved the organization whether that be through a recommendation or your own direct efforts.
Did you increase sales in any way? Did your analysis lead to an increase?

Resume Bullet Point Action Verbs

One way to improve the impact of your bullet points is to start each with a strong action verb. Here is a list of some of my favorite action verbs for a Staff Accountant resume.

Increased profits
Reduced costs by
Secured five new
Created
Developed
Implemented
Improved
Designed
Increased productivity by
Initiated cost savings by
Prevented
Deployed

Staff Accountant Skills

I’ve recruited hundreds of Staff Accountants over the years and read thousands more job descriptions for these roles. Many of those job descriptions I’ve had to rewrite, so I like to think I know a thing or two when it comes to Staff Accountant Skills.

Common Key Skills for Staff Accountant Resumes

Here is a list of the most common and relevant skills I’ve seen in Staff Accountant resumes over the years. Your resume may also contain many of these words within it.

Accounts payable
Accounts receivable
Payroll
Process improvement
3-Way matching
Fright charges
1099s
T&E (travel and expense)
Aging schedules
Check runs
Cash receipts
Chargebacks
Factoring
Bank deposits
Aging analysis
Collections
Credit checks
Credit analysis
Payroll deposits
Job costing
Prevailing wage
Reconciliations
Bank reconciliations
Balance sheet reconciliations
Journal entries
Month-end close
Year-end close
Closing checklist
Accruals
Fixed assets
Financial statements
Management reporting
Property tax
Sales and use tax

How to Write Staff Accountant Skills in Your Resume

Now the key is to not stuff all of these skills into a skills section at the top of your resume and think you’ve written a great resume. In fact, most of my resumes have no skills section at all in them. At least not in the traditional sense that you were taught in school.

These sections do nothing for hiring teams. So what if you list 3-way match or fixed assets in a skills section at the top of your resume? What does that even mean? Do you know how fixed asset depreciation is calculated? Do you reconcile the fixed asset accounts? Are you good at it? You see, a skills section tells me none of that.

Instead, aim to incorporate these skills naturally in your resume summary and work experiences. When you embed them with context, these skills can say a lot about your capabilities.

Instead of writing “match and code invoices,” you could write that you “match and code 500 invoices daily with 0 errors.” The second example is much more impactful and communicates value rather than empty words.

Instead of writing, “reconcile AP subledger,” write “reconcile AP subledger for Northeast Division, averaging $1M in receipts.” The second example shows that you were trusted with an entire division and that you were handling a significant size ledger. Context makes all the difference.

Staff Accountant Soft Skills

If you’ve been Googling how to write a resume, chances are you’ve come across the term, “soft skills.” What most people mean when they say soft skills aren’t skills at all, but rather traits. Things like being detail-oriented or being a self-starter. Writing these resume buzzwords won’t do you any favors. Everyone does it and all hiring teams hate it. No one says they aren’t detail-oriented or they’re not a self-starter.

But saying it doesn’t make it true. And it certainly doesn’t make others believe you. Instead, find ways to show your transferable skills and traits.

Rather than list them all here, you can find a complete article with over 20 soft skills and how to write them in your resume so that they are impactful.

Cole Sperry has been a recruiter and resume writer since 2015, working with tens of thousands of job seekers, and hundreds of employers. Today Cole runs a boutique advisory firm consulting with dozens of recruiting firms and is the Managing Editor at OptimCareers.com.