Top 12 Bursar Skills to Put on Your Resume

Crafting a standout resume as a bursar means showing the rare pairing of rigorous financial control and nimble campus operations. The sections below break down the 12 skills that matter most right now—tools, methods, and habits that signal you can keep the books tight, the students served, and the auditors calm.

Bursar Skills

1. QuickBooks
2. Excel
3. SAP
4. Oracle Financials
5. Budgeting
6. Forecasting
7. Cash Handling
8. Compliance
9. Auditing
10. PeopleSoft
11. Negotiation
12. Data Analysis

1. QuickBooks

QuickBooks is an accounting platform used to record transactions, manage receivables and payables, reconcile accounts, and produce financial reports. In a bursar’s world, it helps with tuition invoicing, payment plans, refunds, deposits, and audit-ready ledgers.

Why It's Important

It cuts manual work, improves accuracy, and makes reporting and reconciliation faster—so student accounts stay current and leadership gets trustworthy numbers without theatrics.

How to Improve QuickBooks Skills

Strengthen control and speed without losing clarity:

1. Automate the routine: Set bank rules and use bank feeds to categorize transactions consistently and trim errors.

2. Tailor reports: Build custom statements for tuition aging, deferred revenue, and collections performance.

3. Budget and forecast: Use class or location tracking plus budgets to monitor spend versus plan by department or fund.

4. Streamline collections: Enable integrated payment acceptance and offer payment plans to accelerate cash and reduce delinquencies.

5. Tighten controls: Use role-based access, close dates, and the audit log. Document monthly close checklists.

6. Upskill the team: Short, targeted training on reconciliations, batch deposits, and error correction goes a long way.

How to Display QuickBooks Skills on Your Resume

2. Excel

Excel is the everyday workhorse for modeling, analysis, reconciliation, and reporting. It turns raw exports into clean insight—fast.

Why It's Important

When a system can’t quite get you the view you need, Excel bridges the gap—budgets, forecasts, variance analysis, arrears tracking, you name it.

How to Improve Excel Skills

Level up where it counts for finance:

1. Master core and modern functions: XLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH, SUMIFS, FILTER, UNIQUE, LET—leaner formulas, fewer headaches.

2. Pivot like a pro: Build PivotTables and slicers for instant summaries of tuition, aid, fees, and collections trends.

3. Use Power Query: Clean and reshape messy exports on refresh instead of redoing work every month.

4. Financial modeling: Create driver-based models with clear inputs, assumptions, and scenarios.

5. Visuals that speak: Charts, sparklines, conditional formatting—make exceptions obvious and wins visible.

6. Automate: Macros or Office Scripts for repetitive reconciliations and report assembly.

7. Keep current: New Excel functions roll out often. Make periodic practice a habit.

How to Display Excel Skills on Your Resume

3. SAP

SAP is a comprehensive ERP suite for large-scale finance and operations. For bursars, it centralizes billing, receivables, cash management, and reporting—often via S/4HANA Finance with user-friendly Fiori apps.

Why It's Important

One source of truth. Strong controls. Deep reporting. It keeps tuition, refunds, waivers, and general ledger postings in sync without endless reconciliation work.

How to Improve SAP Skills

1. Streamline processes: Map and automate recurring workflows (billing cycles, dunning, refunds). Reduce touchpoints.

2. Invest in training: Give staff role-specific enablement on the exact transactions and Fiori apps they use.

3. Protect data quality: Standardize master data rules and schedule periodic reviews; poor data ruins good reports.

4. Lean on analytics: Use embedded analytics or SAP Analytics Cloud for aging, cash flow, and variance dashboards.

5. Customize reporting: Build reports tailored to bursar needs—deferrals, write-offs, payment plan performance.

6. Stay current: Apply updates and security patches on schedule; review new features quarterly.

7. Close the loop: Gather user feedback and iterate. Small UX tweaks save hours.

How to Display SAP Skills on Your Resume

4. Oracle Financials

Oracle Financials—often Oracle Cloud ERP Financials—covers payables, receivables, general ledger, and robust reporting. In higher ed, it anchors student billing flows, revenue recognition, and close activities.

Why It's Important

It unifies transactions and reporting, enforces controls, and supports compliance, so leadership can trust numbers and act quickly.

How to Improve Oracle Financials Skills

1. Tune configuration: Align accounting rules, payment terms, tax, and subledger accounting with campus policies.

2. Boost reporting: Use OTBI/BI Publisher for real-time dashboards—aging, cash forecasts, write-offs, exceptions.

3. Automate work: Workflow approvals, scheduled jobs, and integration with campus systems reduce manual churn.

4. Ongoing training: Short refreshers for month-end close, reconciliations, and updates keep the team sharp.

5. Tight security: Apply least-privilege access, segregation of duties, and periodic access reviews.

6. Integrate smartly: Connect student information systems, payment gateways, and data warehouses for a seamless flow.

How to Display Oracle Financials Skills on Your Resume

5. Budgeting

Budgeting is the planning and allocation of resources to meet academic and operational goals while staying solvent and sane.

Why It's Important

It sets priorities, prevents overspend, and creates visibility. Departments know their limits; leadership sees tradeoffs ahead of time.

How to Improve Budgeting Skills

1. Define goals: Tie budgets to strategic objectives, with measurable outcomes.

2. Forecast with evidence: Use historicals plus enrollment and aid trends to ground assumptions.

3. Engage stakeholders: Collaborate with departments for realistic inputs and accountability.

4. Choose the right tool: Adopt budgeting software or robust spreadsheets with version control and clear audit trails.

5. Review regularly: Monthly variance analysis, midyear reforecasts, course corrections early.

6. Control costs: Identify nonessential spend, renegotiate contracts, and sunset low-impact programs.

7. Diversify revenue: Short courses, facility rentals, grants, partnerships—don’t lean only on tuition.

8. Refine each cycle: Gather feedback and simplify steps that slow you down.

How to Display Budgeting Skills on Your Resume

6. Forecasting

Forecasting predicts tuition revenue, aid drawdowns, collections, refunds, and cash so operations stay smooth and surprises stay small.

Why It's Important

It informs staffing, purchasing, capital plans, and liquidity management. Better foresight, fewer fire drills.

How to Improve Forecasting Skills

1. Mine your history: Spot seasonality in enrollments, payment behavior, and aid timing.

2. Adopt fit-for-purpose tools: Use forecasting features in your ERP or spreadsheet models with scenario toggles.

3. Roll it forward: Update forecasts monthly or quarterly; build rolling 12–18 month views.

4. Bring in partners: Admissions, financial aid, and housing have inputs that move the numbers.

5. Scenario and sensitivity: Best/base/worst cases, plus drivers like discount rate, yield, and retention.

6. Keep learning: Strengthen time-series and regression basics; validate with back-testing.

7. Scan the horizon: Track economic shifts, policy changes, and competitive moves that influence demand.

How to Display Forecasting Skills on Your Resume

7. Cash Handling

Cash handling covers receiving, recording, safeguarding, and depositing funds—cash, checks, cards—without leaks or lapses.

Why It's Important

Money in motion is vulnerable. Good controls prevent loss, errors, and reputational harm.

How to Improve Cash Handling Skills

1. Train and certify: Standardize procedures for counts, receipts, deposits, and custody.

2. Standardize forms and logs: Pre-numbered receipts, daily cash logs, and documented variances.

3. Automate where possible: Cash counters, integrated POS, and reconciliation tools reduce human error.

4. Strengthen security: Dual custody, drop safes, limited access, cameras, and clear chain of custody.

5. Reconcile daily: Match POS to bank and ledger; investigate discrepancies immediately.

6. Audit surprises: Unannounced counts and periodic internal audits keep controls effective.

7. Mind compliance: Follow PCI DSS for card data and retain records per policy.

How to Display Cash Handling Skills on Your Resume

8. Compliance

Compliance means following the rules that govern finance in education—accounting standards, privacy laws, payment rules, fund restrictions, and required reporting.

Why It's Important

It protects students and the institution, reduces penalties and findings, and builds trust with regulators, donors, and leadership.

How to Improve Compliance Skills

1. Know the framework: GAAP or GASB (as applicable), FERPA, PCI DSS, Title IV where relevant, IRS 1098‑T reporting requirements.

2. Document policies: Write clear procedures for billing, refunds, waivers, write-offs, and records retention.

3. Train consistently: Onboard staff with role-based training and refresh annually; track completion.

4. Embed controls: Segregation of duties, approvals, system-enforced limits, and audit trails.

5. Test and monitor: Internal audits, control testing, and periodic policy reviews to catch drift.

6. Stay current: Assign ownership for regulatory watch and update procedures when rules shift.

How to Display Compliance Skills on Your Resume

9. Auditing

Auditing examines records, controls, and processes to confirm accuracy and adherence to policy and standards.

Why It's Important

It spots errors, deters fraud, and sharpens processes—so financial statements and operational reports actually reflect reality.

How to Improve Auditing Skills

1. Raise competency: Keep up with current standards and guidance; share lessons after each audit cycle.

2. Use audit tech: Data analytics tools (e.g., CaseWare, Diligent/ACL) to sample, test, and flag anomalies quickly.

3. Track standards changes: Monitor updates to accounting and auditing guidance that affect your reporting.

4. Risk-based approach: Focus on high-impact areas—cash, receivables, aid disbursement, refunds, fee waivers.

5. Invite an outside view: Periodic external reviews surface blind spots and confirm control design.

6. Close the feedback loop: Remediate findings, assign owners, and verify fixes were effective.

How to Display Auditing Skills on Your Resume

10. PeopleSoft

PeopleSoft (Campus Solutions and Financials) supports student financials, billing, payments, refunds, and financial aid integration, with fluid UI for staff and students.

Why It's Important

It centralizes student account activity, enforces policy, and provides reliable reporting without endless exports.

How to Improve PeopleSoft Skills

1. Automate workflows: Streamline billing runs, payment plans, refunds, and dunning to reduce manual effort.

2. Refine the UI: Configure Fluid pages and tiles for the tasks users do most; make mobile access painless.

3. Integrate payments: Connect to payment gateways and bank files for clean settlement and reconciliation.

4. Strengthen reporting: Use PS/Query and BI Publisher to deliver role-based reports and scheduled bursts.

5. Continuous training: Short refreshers for new features, common errors, and close activities keep throughput high.

How to Display PeopleSoft Skills on Your Resume

11. Negotiation

Negotiation is the back-and-forth that lands on terms both sides can accept—vendors, banks, students, departments.

Why It's Important

Better terms mean lower costs, faster payments, and fewer disputes. It protects budgets and relationships.

How to Improve Negotiation Skills

1. Do the homework: Know your BATNA, market rates, usage data, and constraints before you sit down.

2. Listen actively: Surface the other side’s real needs; trade on variables that matter to them but cost you little.

3. Be clear and brief: Simple language, documented terms, and timelines reduce misfires.

4. Use data: Payment history, volume, seasonality, and benchmarks strengthen your position.

5. Seek mutual gains: Package concessions; pair discounts with longer terms or faster payment methods.

6. Practice and review: Debrief after each negotiation. What worked? What broke? Adjust tactics.

How to Display Negotiation Skills on Your Resume

12. Data Analysis

Data analysis turns raw transactions into decisions—cleaning, modeling, visualizing, and communicating what the numbers actually say.

Why It's Important

It helps you spot trends early, target collections, plan staffing, and defend budgets with evidence—not guesswork.

How to Improve Data Analysis Skills

1. Grow data literacy: Sharpen knowledge of metrics, distributions, and basic statistics.

2. Use the right tools: Excel plus Power Query; for dashboards, consider Power BI or Tableau; for heavy lifting, SQL.

3. Clean relentlessly: Standardize formats, dedupe, validate totals. Bad inputs wreck insights.

4. Automate repetitive prep: Build repeatable pipelines for monthly reports.

5. Tell the story: Clear visuals, one-page summaries, and crisp calls to action.

6. Keep learning: Dip into Python or R for deeper analysis when needed; practice on real campus data.

How to Display Data Analysis Skills on Your Resume