Top 12 Fund Accountant Skills to Put on Your Resume
In the competitive field of fund accounting, showcasing a robust set of skills on your resume can move the needle. The right mix signals accuracy, control, and speed under pressure. Below you’ll find the top 12 skills fund accountants lean on to deliver clean NAVs, crisp reporting, and airtight controls.
Fund Accountant Skills
1. Excel
Excel is Microsoft’s spreadsheet workhorse. Fund accountants rely on it for modeling, variance analysis, NAV support files, and ad hoc reporting that needs to be right and ready—fast.
Why It's Important
Excel flexes where core systems end. It handles large data sets, runs complex calculations, and turns messy inputs into clean outputs for reviews, audits, and portfolio reporting.
How to Improve Excel Skills
Target the tools that pay off in daily workflows and month-end crunches.
Advance your function set: Master XLOOKUP (prefer it over VLOOKUP), INDEX/MATCH, XNPV, XIRR, IFERROR, SUMIFS, TEXT functions, and dynamic arrays like FILTER, UNIQUE, SORT, and SEQUENCE.
Pivot with purpose: Build PivotTables/PivotCharts with clean source data, calculated fields, and slicers. Group by period, security, strategy, or class for rapid drill.
Speed via shortcuts: Keyboard fluency and Quick Access Toolbar tweaks shave serious time during close.
Data validation and controls: Constrain inputs, use conditional formatting to flag breaks, and lock down formula ranges to prevent drift.
Power Query and Power Pivot: Automate data ingestion and modeling. Merge broker files, normalize tabs, and refresh with one click.
Macros/VBA or Office Scripts: Automate repetitive work—file imports, formatting, roll-forward routines. Keep code documented and modular.
Design for review: Separate inputs, calcs, and outputs. Label assumptions. Add checksums and tie-outs. Make audit trails obvious.
Stay current: New Excel features (like LAMBDA, LET) can replace clunky legacy workarounds and simplify models.
Sharper Excel means fewer errors, faster cycles, cleaner reviews.
How to Display Excel Skills on Your Resume
2. QuickBooks
QuickBooks is accounting software often used by smaller managers, administration teams, or related entities for general ledger work, billing, payables, and basic reporting. With careful setup, it can support fund-specific workflows.
Why It's Important
When configured correctly, it streamlines entries, approvals, and reporting. Real-time ledgers and tidy audit trails keep close cycles on track and stakeholders informed.
How to Improve QuickBooks Skills
Custom reports: Build management packs that show NAV drivers, fees, allocations, and period-over-period trends.
Integrations: Connect to data sources and, where relevant, investment systems (e.g., Investran, eFront) to reduce manual rekeying.
Bank feeds and reconciliations: Automate matching rules, set tolerances, and review exceptions daily.
Chart of accounts: Structure by strategy, vehicle, class, and fee type. Use classes/locations/tags for dimensional reporting.
Access controls: Restrict sensitive functions, enable approval workflows, and maintain change logs.
Training and updates: Keep the team aligned on features, close checklists, and year-end procedures.
Good configuration plus discipline equals fewer surprises and cleaner books.
How to Display QuickBooks Skills on Your Resume
3. SAP
SAP is an enterprise platform for finance, operations, and analytics. In fund accounting contexts, it supports ledgers, consolidations, and control frameworks at scale.
Why It's Important
It centralizes data, standardizes processes, and strengthens control over journals, approvals, and reporting—vital when volumes rise and oversight tightens.
How to Improve SAP Skills
FI/CO depth: Learn document flows, postings, allocations, and closing activities. Understand integration points with AP, AR, and Assets.
S/4HANA Finance: Use Universal Journal, embedded analytics, and faster close capabilities. Explore Group Reporting and Central Finance where relevant.
Fiori fluency: Personalize tiles, leverage role-based apps, and streamline approvals.
Automation: Apply workflow, RPA, and templates to standard tasks—recons, journals, recurring entries.
Analytics: Pair with SAP Analytics Cloud for planning, dashboarding, and real-time analysis.
Training and certification: Keep current through formal courses; practice in sandboxes to cement knowledge.
Community and best practices: Learn configuration patterns and governance models that reduce rework and audit findings.
Proficiency unlocks smoother closes and better visibility for controllers and portfolio teams.
How to Display SAP Skills on Your Resume
4. Oracle
Oracle’s finance stack (Cloud ERP, EPM, NetSuite, database) powers ledgers, consolidations, and analytics. Fund accountants tap it for consistent controls and scalable reporting.
Why It's Important
It tightens transaction processing, standardizes reporting, and offers robust audit trails—fuel for accuracy and compliance when stakeholders demand precision.
How to Improve Oracle Skills
Financials Cloud: Deepen GL, AP, AR, Assets, and Cash Management know-how. Learn period close orchestration.
Reporting: Build OTBI analyses, Smart View reports, and narrative reporting packs with driver-based insights.
Customization and automation: Use APEX and workflows to automate journals, approvals, and reconciliations.
Integrations: Connect ERP with data warehouses, bank platforms, and portfolio systems for straight-through processing.
Release cadence: Track quarterly updates, test changes early, and adopt features that remove manual pain points.
Strong Oracle skills cut noise, boost clarity, and speed decisions.
How to Display Oracle Skills on Your Resume
5. Bloomberg
Bloomberg delivers market data, pricing, analytics, and news in one place. For fund accountants, it’s a pricing source, a research tool, and a sanity check on valuations and market events.
Why It's Important
Accurate prices and reference data drive accurate NAVs. Timely market intel helps explain moves, validate inputs, and respond to inquiries without delay.
How to Improve Bloomberg Skills
Terminal fluency: Learn functions you’ll hit daily—FA for financial analysis, WEI for economic data, PORT for portfolio analytics, RV for relative value, FLDS for field definitions, and DES for security overviews.
Pricing controls: Understand contributor hierarchy, composite pricing, evaluated pricing, and overrides. Document price source policies and exception handling.
Excel Add-In and BQL: Pull live and point-in-time data into control files. Parameterize tickers, fields, and dates. Cache where appropriate to stabilize runs.
Audit readiness: Save screenshots or PDF extracts of material prices, curves, and corporate actions used in NAVs. Keep a clear trail.
Training: Complete Bloomberg Market Concepts and role-based modules to sharpen navigation and data discipline.
The payoff is faster closes, fewer price breaks, and stronger valuation narratives.
How to Display Bloomberg Skills on Your Resume
6. GAAP
GAAP—Generally Accepted Accounting Principles—sets the rules of the road in the U.S. It standardizes how financial statements are prepared, compared, and audited. For funds, specialized guidance applies.
Why It's Important
It ensures consistency, reliability, and comparability, which underpins investor trust and regulatory compliance.
How to Improve GAAP Skills
Focus on fund-relevant topics: Study ASC 946 (Investment Companies), ASC 820 (Fair Value), ASC 815 (Derivatives and Hedging), and presentation/disclosure requirements that matter for funds.
Track updates: Monitor new Accounting Standards Updates and evaluate impacts on valuation, disclosures, and revenue/fee recognition.
Disclosure excellence: Build robust fair value hierarchy tables, valuation technique narratives, and sensitivity analyses where applicable.
Internal controls: Map GAAP risks to controls—price verification, model validation, review sign-offs, and documentation standards.
Peer and auditor alignment: Calibrate interpretations with peers and auditors early to avoid last-minute rework.
Comfort with GAAP reduces uncertainty and compresses review cycles.
How to Display GAAP Skills on Your Resume
7. IFRS
IFRS—International Financial Reporting Standards—brings a global rulebook. Funds operating or reporting across borders rely on it for consistent recognition, measurement, and disclosure.
Why It's Important
It enables comparability across jurisdictions and supports clearer investor communications, especially for multinational structures.
How to Improve IFRS Skills
Prioritize the right standards: Emphasize IFRS 9 (Financial Instruments), IFRS 13 (Fair Value Measurement), IFRS 10 and IFRS 12 (Consolidation and Disclosures), and IAS 32/IFRS 7 (presentation and risk disclosures).
Valuation rigor: Align inputs and techniques with IFRS 13, document unobservable inputs, and present hierarchy levels clearly.
Financial instruments: Get comfortable with classification/measurement, impairment, and hedge accounting as they apply to fund strategies.
Crosswalks: Maintain GAAP-to-IFRS mappings for entities that report under both, noting key differences in measurement and presentation.
Interim and year-end cadence: Build repeatable processes for IAS 34 interim reporting and annual disclosures.
Solid IFRS capability clears up consolidation questions, valuation debates, and investor scrutiny.
How to Display IFRS Skills on Your Resume
8. Reconciliation
Reconciliation means proving books and records. Cash, positions, trades, fees—internal ledgers must match banks, brokers, and administrators, with breaks explained and resolved.
Why It's Important
It protects asset integrity, catches errors early, and provides the backbone for accurate NAVs and clean audits.
How to Improve Reconciliation Skills
Automate the routine: Use reconciliation tools or scripts to match high-volume items and surface exceptions instantly.
Standardize SOPs: Clear procedures for two-way and three-way recs, cutoffs, approval steps, and escalation paths.
Daily cadence: T+1 (or same-day) reconciliations for cash, positions, and trades reduce month-end pileups.
Exception management: Apply break codes, materiality thresholds, and ageing. Track root causes and remediate.
Pricing and income: Reconcile accruals, corporate actions, and interest/dividends to source statements.
Controls and evidence: Independent reviews, sign-offs, immutable logs, and audit-ready documentation.
Well-run reconciliations quiet the noise and keep closes predictable.
How to Display Reconciliation Skills on Your Resume
9. Forecasting
Forecasting projects cash flows, expenses, and performance drivers. For funds, it informs liquidity management, fee timing, capital calls, and operational planning.
Why It's Important
Better foresight prevents liquidity crunches, aligns working capital, and sharpens communications with investors and management.
How to Improve Forecasting Skills
Driver-based models: Tie forecasts to AUM, flows, strategy mix, fee schedules, and market beta assumptions.
Rolling forecasts: Replace static annual plans with 12–18 month rolling updates that refresh as conditions change.
Scenario and sensitivity: Model bear/base/bull cases. Stress redemptions, spread moves, and fee breakpoints.
Data hygiene: Use clean historicals, consistent assumptions, and controlled versioning. Reconcile model outputs to actuals each cycle.
Tooling: Build in Excel or planning platforms with audit trails, input controls, and transparent calculations.
Forecasts shouldn’t guess; they should explain.
How to Display Forecasting Skills on Your Resume
10. Compliance
Compliance guards the perimeter. It’s adherence to laws, regulations, and internal policies governing valuation, custody, reporting, marketing, and more.
Why It's Important
It mitigates regulatory risk, protects investors, and preserves firm reputation—no small things.
How to Improve Compliance Skills
Know the rulebook: Understand requirements relevant to your funds (e.g., 1940 Act, Form PF, AIFMD, AML/KYC, valuation and custody standards).
RCM and control mapping: Build a risk and control matrix that links requirements to specific controls, evidence, and owners.
Monitoring and testing: Periodic reviews, surveillance, and control testing with documented conclusions and remediation steps.
Technology: Use compliance and workflow tools for approvals, attestations, disclosures, and retention.
Training and culture: Regular refreshers, clear policies, and a speak-up environment that surfaces issues early.
When compliance is built into daily routines, audits feel routine too.
How to Display Compliance Skills on Your Resume
11. Risk Management
Risk management means spotting, measuring, and controlling the operational and financial risks that can dent NAVs, delay closes, or erode trust.
Why It's Important
It keeps reporting accurate, assets safeguarded, and investors confident even when markets sway.
How to Improve Risk Management Skills
Risk taxonomy: Map valuation risk, pricing source risk, model risk, counterparty risk, operational process risk, and data quality risk.
Controls that matter: Segregation of duties, maker–checker reviews, price verification with independent sources, limit checks, and reconciliation SLAs.
Metrics and thresholds: Establish KRIs (e.g., NAV error rates, reconciliation breaks ageing) and escalation levels.
Periodic assessments: Run RCSA sessions, test scenarios, and remediate control gaps with clear owners and timelines.
Resilience: Maintain BCP/DR plans, vendor risk reviews, and change management procedures.
A steady risk framework turns surprises into manageable tasks.
How to Display Risk Management Skills on Your Resume
12. SQL
SQL—Structured Query Language—unlocks data in relational databases. Fund accountants use it to query, reconcile, and analyze transactions, prices, and positions at scale.
Why It's Important
It turns raw system data into crisp checks, exception reports, and analytics without waiting on someone else’s queue.
How to Improve SQL Skills
Core queries: Get fluent with SELECT, JOINs, WHERE, GROUP BY, HAVING, and CASE. Write readable queries with clear aliases and comments.
Aggregation and windows: Use SUM, COUNT, AVG, and window functions (ROW_NUMBER, LAG, LEAD) for period-over-period and holdings-level analysis.
CTEs and subqueries: Break complex logic into legible steps. CTEs make reviews and audits easier.
Performance basics: Understand indexes, execution plans, and filtering to keep queries nimble on large tables.
Data quality checks: Build queries that flag duplicates, nulls, outliers, and broken referential links.
Workflow integration: Connect SQL outputs to Excel, BI tools, or ETL jobs. Parameterize dates and portfolios for repeatable runs.
With solid SQL, you’ll spot breaks early and explain results with confidence.
How to Display SQL Skills on Your Resume
