Top 12 Finance Assistant Skills to Put on Your Resume

A well-crafted resume that shows your strength as a Finance Assistant can lift your chances in a crowded financial job market. Put the spotlight on skills that prove your analytical bite, precision with numbers, and steady grasp of finance. Hiring managers skim fast; make every line earn its keep.

Finance Assistant Skills

1. QuickBooks
2. Excel
3. SAP
4. Oracle
5. Tableau
6. Python
7. SQL
8. Bloomberg Terminal
9. Xero
10. Financial Modeling
11. VBA
12. Power BI

1. QuickBooks

QuickBooks is accounting software built for small and midsize businesses. It helps a Finance Assistant track transactions, invoices, bills, payroll, and reports without drowning in manual work.

Why It's Important

QuickBooks matters because it streamlines bookkeeping, reduces entry errors, and speeds up reporting. Budgets, invoicing, and payroll flow more smoothly when the system is set up right.

How to Improve QuickBooks Skills

Improve your impact by leaning into customization, automation, and integrations:

1. Customization: Shape dashboards, forms, and reports to highlight what the business needs daily—cash flow, overdue invoices, month-end checklists.

2. Automation: Turn on bank feeds, recurring invoices, and payment reminders. Fewer clicks. Fewer mistakes. More time for analysis.

3. Integration: Connect time tracking, inventory, expense management, or reporting apps from the QuickBooks app ecosystem to tighten the workflow.

Dial these in and QuickBooks becomes a sharper tool for clean books and timely insights.

How to Display QuickBooks Skills on Your Resume

2. Excel

Excel is the day-to-day backbone for finance work: analysis, reconciliations, budgeting, forecasting, and tidy reporting.

Why It's Important

It speeds up modeling, sharpens analysis, and keeps financial reporting consistent and traceable—vital for decision-making under pressure.

How to Improve Excel Skills

Level up where it counts:

1. Master Core Functions: SUM, AVERAGE, IF, XLOOKUP/VLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH. Repeat until they’re second nature.

2. PivotTables: Summarize and slice large datasets fast. Add slicers and timelines for quick filtering.

3. Financial Functions: NPV, IRR, PMT, XNPV, XIRR. Use named ranges to keep models readable.

4. Data Analysis Toolpak: Run regressions, descriptive stats, and what-if analysis without leaving Excel.

5. Keyboard Shortcuts: Save minutes every hour. Those minutes add up at month-end.

6. Macros and VBA (basics): Automate repetitive reports, formatting, and data cleanup.

7. Conditional Formatting: Flag exceptions, deadlines, and outliers visually.

8. Keep Current: Explore dynamic arrays, Power Query, and Power Pivot if available in your version.

With these in place, your spreadsheets start working for you—not the other way around.

How to Display Excel Skills on Your Resume

3. SAP

SAP provides enterprise resource planning tools that tie finance to operations—general ledger, AP/AR, asset accounting, and more. Today, many organizations run SAP S/4HANA Finance for real-time processing and tighter controls.

Why It's Important

It standardizes processes, strengthens controls, and improves reporting accuracy. Budgeting, forecasting, and reconciliations get cleaner when data lives in one reliable system.

How to Improve SAP Skills

1. Finance Basics in SAP: Learn posting cycles, document types, clearing, and period-end steps in FI and CO (or S/4HANA Finance equivalents).

2. Hands-on Practice: Use a sandbox or training environment. Repetition beats theory.

3. Configuration Awareness: Understand high-level config (charts of accounts, posting keys, tolerance groups). Even read-only knowledge helps you troubleshoot faster.

4. Reporting: Get comfortable with standard reports and drilldowns; explore Fiori apps if your company uses them.

5. Stay Current: Track S/4HANA updates and new finance features released by your organization’s SAP team.

How to Display SAP Skills on Your Resume

4. Oracle

Oracle offers financial management across cloud and on-premise systems—general ledger, payables, receivables, fixed assets, and robust reporting. Many teams now use Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP.

Why It's Important

It unifies financial data, tightens controls, and provides real-time insights, which supports faster closes and better decisions.

How to Improve Oracle Skills

1. Know the Modules: General Ledger, AP, AR, Cash Management, Assets. Learn the flow between them.

2. Sharpen SQL: Useful for reporting and ad hoc data pulls from Oracle databases.

3. Financial Reporting: Practice building and scheduling standard and management reports.

4. Keep Up with Releases: Cloud updates roll out frequently—scan release notes and internal admin updates.

5. Certifications and Training: If available through your employer, formal training helps cement process knowledge.

How to Display Oracle Skills on Your Resume

5. Tableau

Tableau turns raw data into interactive dashboards. For finance, that means faster trend spotting, cleaner variance analysis, and visuals leadership actually reads.

Why It's Important

It makes financial data clear at a glance—KPIs, margins, cash trends—so decisions don’t stall.

How to Improve Tableau Skills

1. Core Skills: Dimensions vs. measures, calculated fields, filters, parameters, and actions.

2. Data Prep: Clean and shape data before visualization; know joins, blends, and data source filters.

3. Dashboard Design: Prioritize readability. Limit clutter, use consistent scales, and highlight exceptions.

4. Finance-Focused Analytics: Build dashboards for budget vs. actuals, working capital, and product profitability.

5. Practice with Real Data: Rebuild existing management reports as dashboards and compare usability.

6. Community and Iteration: Share drafts with stakeholders, gather feedback, iterate quickly.

How to Display Tableau Skills on Your Resume

6. Python

Python is a flexible programming language used for data cleaning, automation, reconciliations, and modeling. Libraries like pandas, NumPy, and matplotlib make it practical for finance.

Why It's Important

It cuts manual work, handles large datasets gracefully, and standardizes recurring analysis with scripts you can trust.

How to Improve Python Skills

1. Data Stack: pandas and NumPy for manipulation; matplotlib or seaborn for charts.

2. Finance Libraries: Explore tools for time series, valuation, and risk; start simple and expand.

3. Databases: Read/write from SQL stores; learn basic ORM or direct queries.

4. Excel Automation: Generate and refresh reports with libraries that write to .xlsx files.

5. Project Hygiene: Use virtual environments, requirements files, and clear folder structures.

6. Real Problems: Automate a month-end task, reconcile datasets, or build a forecasting script.

7. Keep Learning: Review example repos, internal codebases, and style guides to improve quality.

How to Display Python Skills on Your Resume

7. SQL

SQL is the language of relational databases. It lets you pull, join, and transform financial data without waiting on someone else.

Why It's Important

Accurate reporting relies on clean queries. With SQL, you check numbers at the source and build repeatable logic.

How to Improve SQL Skills

1. Solid Fundamentals: SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE. Know your WHERE clauses and GROUP BY behavior.

2. Joins and Subqueries: INNER, LEFT, CROSS, and correlated subqueries—bread and butter for finance datasets.

3. Window Functions: Running totals, period-over-period deltas, ranking—great for trend analysis.

4. Performance: Understand indexes, execution plans, and how to avoid unnecessary scans.

5. Data Modeling: Basic normalization and schema awareness help you navigate complex environments.

6. BI Integration: Connect SQL outputs to tools like Power BI or Tableau for polished reporting.

7. Practice: Rebuild current reports via SQL and compare speed, accuracy, and maintainability.

8. Community and Standards: Follow internal conventions and review queries with peers.

How to Display SQL Skills on Your Resume

8. Bloomberg Terminal

Bloomberg Terminal delivers real-time market data, news, analytics, and powerful search—useful for teams dealing with securities, FX, rates, and market-sensitive reporting.

Why It's Important

When timing matters, it’s the hub for fast data and consistent identifiers, with tools that speed price checks and market analysis.

How to Improve Bloomberg Terminal Skills

1. Customize the Layout: Pin what you use most. Build workspaces for daily monitoring vs. deep dives.

2. Excel Add-In: Pull live data into spreadsheets with formulas like BDP, BDH, and BDS for automated updates.

3. Shortcuts and Functions: Learn core mnemonics and help screens; it saves time when markets move.

4. Training: Use in-product tutorials and your firm’s sessions to discover faster workflows.

5. Alerts: Set news and price alerts so you don’t have to stare at the screen all day.

How to Display Bloomberg Terminal Skills on Your Resume

9. Xero

Xero is cloud accounting for small and midsize businesses. Invoicing, bank reconciliation, expenses, and payroll sit in one place, which keeps finance assistants moving quickly.

Why It's Important

Real-time books, cleaner reconciliations, and faster reporting. Less chasing, more clarity.

How to Improve Xero Skills

1. Automate the Routine: Switch on bank feeds and build bank rules so recurring entries post themselves.

2. Use Add-Ons: Connect apps for bills, receipts, inventory, and reporting to trim manual steps.

3. Custom Reports: Tailor layouts, schedules, and filters so stakeholders get what they need on time.

4. Tight Reconciliations: Reconcile often, review suspense accounts, and resolve unmatched items quickly.

5. Training: Complete core Xero courses; the time you save later is worth it.

6. Shortcuts: Learn navigation and entry shortcuts to shave minutes off every task.

How to Display Xero Skills on Your Resume

10. Financial Modeling

Financial modeling builds structured spreadsheets to forecast performance, test scenarios, and answer “what if.” For a Finance Assistant, it supports budgeting, forecasting, pricing, and variance analysis.

Why It's Important

It translates assumptions into numbers. Decisions stop being guesses; they become measurable trade-offs.

How to Improve Financial Modeling Skills

1. Excel Mastery: Functions, dynamic arrays, data validation, and clean formatting standards.

2. Finance Fundamentals: Time value of money, cost of capital, working capital cycles, and three-statement links.

3. Structured Layout: Separate inputs, calculations, and outputs. Use clear labels and consistent color coding.

4. Real Data Practice: Rebuild historicals, then forecast; stress-test assumptions.

5. Courses and Guides: Take focused training to learn best practices and review model audits.

6. Certifications (Optional): Programs like FMVA can help standardize your approach and signal skill.

How to Display Financial Modeling Skills on Your Resume

11. VBA

VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) adds automation and custom logic inside Excel. It’s perfect for repetitive reporting and tidy data prep.

Why It's Important

It slashes manual steps, cuts errors, and lets you build repeatable tools tailored to your team’s process.

How to Improve VBA Skills

1. Foundations: Variables, loops, conditionals, recording macros, and referencing ranges properly.

2. Finance Use Cases: Automate reconciliations, build import routines, standardize report formatting.

3. Real Projects: Start with one nagging task and script it. Then another. Momentum helps.

4. Debugging and Optimization: Step through code, handle errors, and refactor to run faster.

5. Community Patterns: Learn naming conventions and module organization for maintainable code.

6. Longevity: VBA remains widely used in finance teams—keep examples and snippets you can reuse.

How to Display VBA Skills on Your Resume

12. Power BI

Power BI turns raw data into interactive visuals and scheduled reports. Finance assistants lean on it for timely, consistent, and shareable insights.

Why It's Important

It centralizes metrics, reduces spreadsheet sprawl, and brings stakeholders the same version of the truth.

How to Improve Power BI Skills

1. DAX: Build measures for margins, period-over-period comparisons, and dynamic filtering.

2. Power Query: Clean, merge, and reshape data at the source—no more fragile manual steps.

3. Data Modeling: Star schemas, relationships, and proper granularity make reports snappy and accurate.

4. Visual Best Practices: Minimal clutter, clear labeling, meaningful colors, and intuitive navigation.

5. Refresh and Governance: Set refresh schedules, manage access, and document data sources.

6. Iterate: Prototype fast, gather feedback, and refine based on what users actually need.

How to Display Power BI Skills on Your Resume