Find out the top 10 core skills you need to master as a bookkeeper and what hard skills you need to know to succeed in this job.

A Bookkeeper is responsible for maintaining records of financial transactions by establishing accounts, posting sales, ensuring legal requirements compliance.

The essential duties of this position include developing systems to account for financial transactions a chart or statements, defining bookkeeping policies and procedures, maintaining subsidiary accounts by verifying, allocating and posting transactions, balancing subsidiary accounts by reconciling entries, maintaining general ledger by transferring the subsidiary account summaries, balancing general ledger by preparing a trial balance, combining all entries, maintaining a historical record by filing documents, preparing the financial reports by collecting, analyzing and summarizing account information and trends, contributing to team effort by accomplishing related results as required, complying with the federal, state and local requirements.

Core Skills Required to be a Bookkeeper

Core skills describe a set of non-technical abilities, knowledge, and understanding that form the basis for successful participation in the workplace. Core skills enable employees to efficiently and professionally navigate the world of work and interact with others, as well as adapt and think critically to solve problems.

Core skills are often tagged onto job descriptions to find or attract employees with specific essential core values that enable the company to remain competitive, build relationships, and improve productivity.

A bookkeeper should master the following 10 core skills to fulfill her job properly.

Phone Skills:

Phone Skills are useful to present a professional company image through the telephone to the customers while making them feel well informed and appreciated without necessarily seeing their faces.

A Bookkeeper is required to master and project an enthusiastic natural tone to make both the customers and staff feel comfortable during the conversation while creating room for a productive and friendly exchange.

Administrative Skills:

Administrative Skills are all the services related to the running of a business or keeping an office organized while supporting the efforts of the management team.

A Bookkeeper must develop these skills and emphasize the administrative skills to ensure high-level responsibilities that range from planning large scale events to creating presentations and analyzing financial data are handled carefully and efficiently.

Collaborating with others:

Collaborating is willingly working with one another and cooperating in whatever task one is assigned without behaving poorly or having an attitude change that hurts others.

A Bookkeeper is meant to collaborate with all workers and management both male and female without causing frustrations or sidelining any worker or delaying their promotion from any informal conversations where most decisions are often made.

Leadership Skills:

Leadership Skills are soft skills that assist leaders in positively interacting with employees or team members to make the workplace a great place.

A Bookkeeper must be able to lead effectively by learning how to deal with all types of people in a way that motivates, enthuse and build respect in a bid to understand and develop his leadership skills.

Personal Growth:

Personal Growth is the improvement of one's awareness, identity, developing talents and potential to facilitate the growth of oneself and the position they handle at the workplace.

A Bookkeeper ought to assist his employees in finding themselves by introducing or referring them to methods, programs, tools, techniques and assessment systems that support their development at the individual level in the organization.

Physical Abilities:

Physical Abilities is the ability of one's strengths and limitations that are also known as the individual resources to perform well at the tasks given.

A Bookkeeper must understand that his employees are very different types of people who vary in what they can or cannot do and treat each one with respect while supporting them to become the best in what they do.

Competitiveness:

Competitiveness is the skill of being able to compete as a team or a company with other enterprises in the same line of entrepreneurship and emerging as the winner.

A Bookkeeper needs creativity in setting the pace for the organization on the policies and factors that determine the level of productivity of their enterprise against their competitors leading to the growth of the business and the income.

Time Management:

Time Management is the capacity for an individual to assign specific time slots to activities as per their importance and urgency to make the best possible use of time.

A Bookkeeper must schedule each task within a stipulated period for each employee and ensure all the tasks are completed promptly thus actually teaching the staff the value of time and how to utilize it for the interest of the business and their growth.

Process Improvement:

Process Improvement is the creation of new processes or improving the existing ones that will work and take your corporation to the next level.

A Bookkeeper must maintain the continuous improvements in the workplace that are favorable to the current investors, potential investors, and stock owners while working with methods that can serve as a foundation for future business decisions causing a profitable growth.

Writing Reports and Proposals:

Writing Reports and Proposals is the ability to record business reports and plans for the company or project following the policies and procedures of the company.

A Bookkeeper should, therefore, emphasize the need and accuracy of these reports and plans to ensure they are delivered promptly, and the details within are accurate adhering to the company's policies and regulations without compromise.

Hard Skills Required to be a Bookkeeper

Hard skills are job-specific skill sets, or expertise, that are teachable and whose presence can be tested through exams. While core skills are more difficult to quantify and less tangible, hard skills are quantifiable and more defined.

Hard skills are usually listed on an applicant's resume to help recruiters know the applicant's qualifications for the applied position. A recruiter, therefore, needs to review the applicant's resume and education to find out if he/she has the knowledge necessary to get the job done.

A bookkeeper should have a good command of the following hard skills to succeed in her job.

Bookkeeper: Hard skills list

Account Analysis
Account Reconciliation
Accounting Information Systems
Accounting Software
Accounts Payable
Accounting Processes
Accounting Principles
Accounts Receivable
Accuracy
ADP
Aging Reports
Analytical
Analysis
Annual Reports
Asset Management
Attention to Detail
Audits
Audit Schedules
Balance Sheets
Banking
Bank Deposits
Bank Reconciliations
Bill Payment
Bookkeeping
Budgets
Business Awareness
Cash Receipts
Certified Public Accountant (CPA)
Chart of Accounts
Check Runs
Collections
Commitment
Communication
Compliance
Computer
Corporate Reports
Corporate Tax
Cost Accounting
Credit Management
Credits
Crystal Reports
Debt Management
Depreciation
Detail Orientation
Federal Tax Law
Finance
Financial Analysis
Financial Reporting
Financial Software
Financial Statements
Financial Statement Analysis
Fixed Assets
Forecasts
Forecasting
Full Charge Bookkeeping
Full Cycle Month-End Close
Full Cycle Year-end Close
GAAP
General Ledger
Great Plains Accounting
Great Plains Dynamics
Income Tax
Interest Calculations
Interpersonal Skills
Invoices
IT Knowledge
Job Cost Reports
Journal Entry Preparation/Posting
Mathematical
Microsoft Office
Monthly Closes
Motivation
Multitasking
MS Access
MS Excel
MS Word
Numerical Competence
Oracle
Organization
Paychex
Payroll
Payroll Liabilities
Payroll Taxes
Peachtree
Personal Tax
Petty Cash
Platinum
Prepaid Income/Expenses
Problem Solving
Profit and Loss
Professionalism
QuickBooks
Reconciliation
Regulatory Filings
Reporting
Revenue Projections
Revenue Recognition
Sales Receipts
SAP
Special Projects
State Tax Law
Tax Analysis
Tax Compliance
Tax Filing
Tax Law
Tax Liabilities
Tax Reporting
Tax Returns
Tax Software
Technology
Teamwork
Time Management
Training
Trial Balance
Vouchers
Writing
Written Communication
Year End Reporting

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