Accounting Skills – Which are the Most Important? The job market for accounting professionals is hot. But if you want to land the best jobs, you need to demonstrate the in-demand accounting skills that make you the perfect fit. It’s not all about technical accounting skills. Accounting managers can teach good people the basics of Excel, bank reconciliations, and software, but accounting soft skills may be more elusive. To ensure you’ve always got options, these are the top accounting skills you need to master: Information Technology Digital Competency Communication Decision Making Conscientiousness Being a Team Player Customer Service Digital Skills for Accountants Employers today are less concerned with how fast you wield a 10-key than they are with your knowledge of accounting systems, such as QuickBooks or Xero for small business or Sage, Oracle or SAP for big industry. Advanced Excel skills for accountants are also in demand, as accountants use spreadsheets in virtually every position, in every industry. Experience working with a particular product is great, but the ability to adapt to various software and systems demonstrates flexibility and technological aptitude. Basic Excel Skills for Accountants 1. Presentation and Formatting If you’re sharing your spreadsheet with someone, it’s important that all of the information is easy to digest and understand. Formatting the cells using colors, or font variations (bold, italic, etc.) can help communicate what you’re trying to express. For example, a conditional format could be applied to highlight all negative numbers in red, and highlight positive numbers in green. 2. Utilize VLOOOKUPs VLOOKUPs make finding specific data very simple. In the event that you need to pull all the entries (from one or more spreadsheets) that contain a specific piece of data, this is the tool that should be used. 3. Data Manipulation Having all the data in a spreadsheet is only the first step. An excellent accountant knows how to filter and sort any set of data to prepare a simple yet informative report without any unnecessary clutter. Business Intelligence to Provide Actionable Advice The ability to produce timely and accurate numbers is of course one of Read More »
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