Preparing Your Accounting Resume For Small And Medium Business Owners

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises or Businesses (SMEs or SMBs) show special interest in hiring remote professionals.

Part-time remote accountants are ideally suited for small businesses since their workload doesn’t require full-time accountants and they normally want to conserve office space.

Entrepreneurs focus on their main business activity. A tour operator knows how to sell tours. Operations of a small food company lie in recipes, ingredients and specialties. A health club has its focal-point on its fitness, yoga, gym or spa stuff. And so forth.

That’s why small business owners need someone who can perform routine accounting work in a smart and tidy manner and keep bookkeeping in order.

I am listing the accounting services and features that are most important for small business owners. Your resume should display your capabilities as project stories, job experiences, tasks and assignments that you have undertaken or anything that prominently highlights these accounting capabilities.

Show me the flow of my money

Money coming in is the most interesting feature of any business and money going out is the most important concern! Your resume should reflect your experience of accurately monitoring the flow of money i.e. income and expenses.

Accounting is all about handling money and remote freelance bookkeepers are required to show diverse ways to receive money and make payments (checks, ACH, credit cards etc.) in the simplest possible manner.

I Want To Keep An Eye On My Revenue And Cost Centers

Income and expenses give rise to revenue and cost centers, which business owners surely want to identify.

Let your resume speak of your accounting knowledge and experience to identify revenue and cost centers.

Invoicing and Banking

Small companies follow invoicing requirements from their customers, issue and process all types of bills, receipts, requests and statements. All this is part of an accountant’s job. Besides, handling bank accounts, bank loans, partners and investors are also important accounting functions.

Mentioning your invoicing and banking experience from different angles will make your resume shine.

Handle My Accounting Mess

As business owners focus on their core business without worrying much about accounting, their books quickly turn into a mess.

Without a proper accounting system in place, entries in the account books will not trace to transactions, account books and ledgers will not match with each other, revenue and cost centers will be difficult to identify and financial statements will hardly make sense.

It’s common for business owners to look for part-time accountants to fix their accounting mess. Your resume should say that you know how to fix untidy and messed up accounting.

I Need An Accounting Workflow System

Small business owners announce jobs looking for an accounting workflow system. Your clients want to ensure appropriate recording of transactions and also want to routinely produce meaningful and easy reports.

Your resume should mention workflows to handle everyday accounting needs of small businesses.

Health Of My Business

Most of your small business clients will be interested in learning about the financial health of their business for which P & L picture of their business is most important.

Accounting Data Entry Jobs

In case your client already has an accounting workflow in place, your job will be to accurately enter data and run reports. You will type-in or copy-paste figures, numbers and statistics from scanned papers, emails or PDF invoices into spreadsheets or ERP systems.

These jobs are good for students, novice accountants or those starting their career. You will have the opportunity to apply your academic knowledge and also learn practical workflows.

Do My Tax And Legal Stuff

You’ll also come across clients who need tax accounting services in order to prepare tax returns according to relevant laws and rules.

Financial Planning And Budgeting

Small business owners have future plans for which bookkeepers are to prepare estimates and budgets. Professional accountants can always compare what was planned with actual money earned or spent. If you’ve done financial planning or budgeting work, don’t forget to mention it in your CV.

Analytics and Reporting

Small business owners need to link accounting data to financial performance and identify factors driving growth. In order to do this, they need accountants who can analyze customers, suppliers, expenses, cash flow and profits. This analysis results in business reporting that is surely worth mentioning in your resume.

Summary

Small businesses need assistance with bookkeeping, planning, accounting cleanup, recording transactions, categorizing, reconciliation, performing or supervising AP or AR functions, accounting workflows, business reporting and tax returns. You can find these requirements in many job descriptions. If you want to build your career with SMBs, your resume should reflect your expertise in these areas.