Top 15 Account Receivable Clerk Skills to Succeed in Your Career

This post presents important account receivable clerk skills and qualities that you need to develop to be effective on the job and succeed in your career.

Being an account receivable clerk demands concentration and delicate approach to the work given to you.

The account receivable clerk needs to be at the right frame of mind always to ensure that they deliver an excellent job.

What is the Account Receivable Clerk Role?

The office of an account receivable clerk is tasked with recording and documenting financial transactions, which generate revenue for the organization.

This is as opposed to the role of an account payable clerk whose job is to record and document transactions that generate expenditures to the organization.

Top 15 Account Receivable Clerk Skills to Succeed in Your Career

Here are important skills and qualities you need to have as an account receivable clerk to be top in your career:

Basic knowledge of accounting
Job awareness
Good mathematics skills
Analytical skills
Problem solving skills
Interpersonal skills
Detail oriented
Good writing skills
Organizational skill
Accountability
Team player
Confidentiality
Concentration
Calmness when under pressure
IT skills.

Basic knowledge of accounting

Account receivable clerk is actually an accounting job and as such demands some sound accounting skills.

Accounting is the building block of this job, so have that in mind and get the best accounting skills you can muster on daily basis.

Being in a sensitive position as that of an account receivable clerk means that you should be good enough to handle your job and other related job descriptions.

There is no running away from it and there is no shortcut to it. You need to develop your best accounting skills in this regards.

Lack of basic accounting skills in this job can expose you to error and misinterpretation of some workings in the working documents at your disposal.

Worst of it all, it can earn you a sack as no organization will like to have an incompetent staff in their ranks.

Job awareness

Working in the accounting department will definitely expose you to doing other related tasks in the organization as an overlapping function.

This is to an extent good for your development and promotion in due time.

But it should not make you forget your primary job description.

Always keep in mind that your primary job description is the yardstick with which your efficiency in the organization is measured and not necessarily other related functions.

Your job description is the basic thing you are employed to accomplish.

Negligence of this fact will stress you out as well as making the organization rating you low.

So, it is important you stick to your job description mainly before you dabble into other secondary job descriptions.

Do not misplace your priority.

Good mathematics skills

Accounting is a dream job for people who are good in manipulating figures.

It is a job for the exceptional mathematicians and not just people that have little knowledge about mathematics. Mathematics is the building block of accounting.

If you have basic mathematics skills or knowledge, you should be able to move on to getting more advanced knowledge on mathematics.

Don’t forget that is the foundation of accounting and any other job that demands playing around with numbers.

Accounting job is not for those that are mathematically naive.

It is for those that understand mathematics to a reasonable and satisfactory level.

So, if you want to succeed in your job, you have a lot on your hands to do as long as mathematics is concerned.

Analytical skills

Analytical skills are also one thing that can keep you out of trouble in the course of executing your job.

It is helpful when you are faced with dire situations that demand problem solving skills to come to the fore.

It is important to be a skilled analyst; being skilled in analysis demands that your concentration level is top notch and sound.

You can’t be a good account analyst without being able to build up your concentration level to be impeccable.

There is gain in being able to concentrate at the job at hand.

Good analysis brings you on the verge of getting the desired result you wish to achieve.

There is no way you can improve your problem solving skills if you are not well grounded in analyzing issues or documents you are expected to work with.

Problem solving skills

There are problems that are specific to certain jobs or fields and there are challenges that are more general in nature.

So, the first step towards solving your problems in the organization is to identify the type of problems or challenges they are.

Secondly is to analyze the problems.

In analyzing some of the challenges you have, you are expected to employ deep thinking and the ability to apply rational reasoning to your analysis.

When you analyze, you analyze with an open mind not neglecting any detail you come across.

The last step is to seek for help or support.

This help may come from you or you may need the support of other people in the department or ultimately from the manager or employer.

But you should be known for your ability to solve some problems in the organization.

Interpersonal skills

There is no way you will not need to work with people in your department, knowing fully well that the people in your workplace (colleagues) are the greatest assets you need to remain competent in your job.

So, you have to develop good interpersonal skills to be able to work with them.

Interpersonal skills are needed in every organization and are an important skill to have in every resume.

If you cannot work with people, then it means you don’t have team spirit and as such can’t achieve so much in your job.

The strength of your team is far bigger than your individual strength.

The most important thing is to recognize the need to work with people and secondly understand that interpersonal skills are what will help you work effectively with people.

Detail oriented

Details are important aspects of your accounting job in any organization you work for.

They can be small or minute but can make a huge difference during auditing exercise in the company.

So, try as much as you can not to entertain oversight in your job.

Looking at the nature of your job, accounting job of any capacity has zero tolerance for negligence of any form of detail.

Every detail during transactions is important and can be worked with to achieve greater results.

This means that overlooking any form of detail during transactions could be fatal and can be a problem in the long run, especially during auditing exercise.

Some have lost their jobs due to negligence of what they perceive as irrelevant details.

Good writing skills

Writing is a good skill to have in any accounting job.

The purpose is to create clarity and maintain useful information in the documentation of financial transactions carried out in the organization.

So, there is need for you to be good at noting down events and financial transactions.

To be a good account receivable clerk, writing must be one of the basic skills you should boast of.

You should be an excellent writer that others can interpret whatever you put down on paper in the form of descriptions of transactions.

For record and auditing purposes, you should be able to know that there is no way you can keep relevant information without writing them down.

Organizational skill

Organizational skill is spelt out to help you put yourself and activities in order before entering the organization to work every day.

Organizational skill is needed if you want to have an eventful and result oriented day at work.

With plethora of abilities and skills being on display every day, if you are not well skilled in organization, you may likely run into undesired situations.

This is what organizational skill can help you avoid.

Organization starts from your house.

A man once said, “If you want to change the world, start with dressing your bed in the morning”.

By extension, it means that your organization should start from your house, not necessarily from the office.

You have to prepare for work before entering the working place.

Accountability

Accountability is one of the best skills you can possess in your job as the account receivable clerk.

This is because the job you are doing is a sensitive one and one you cannot afford to be careless about.

It demands total accountability.

Your ability to be accountable to your employer or manager at work shows professionalism and good work ethic.

Financial matters are always the focal point of most auditing exercises in the organization.

This is because profit is the essence of every private enterprise.

So, to be seen as accountable, sincere and trustworthy, you have to show yourself to be accountable at every point in time.

You don’t have to get involved into transactions not sanctioned by your employer or manager.

It could spell your end in the company.

Team player

This point has been touched a bit when we were discussing interpersonal skills above.

It is true that you are a professional for you to have been considered for the job of an account receivable clerk.

But relying totally on your personal abilities might fail you in the long run.

Team spirit augments your abilities and puts you on the pedestal to achieve greater and more efficient results in your job.

You don’t have to present yourself to be an island of knowledge.

You don’t know it and for that reason you need to work as a team member.

Also, understand that your colleagues at work are your most effective leverage which you need to make any meaningful headway in the organization.

This is because some organizations rely heavily on the recommendation of people in the workplace to assign more responsibilities to an employee.

So, if you have the record of not being a team player, you may likely miss out on this opportunity.

Confidentiality

As an account receivable clerk, you should be able to keep relevant matters and documents secret except for those in the right placement or level.

You are to consider every transaction confidential and as such must be up for it.

You have to be skilled in this.

Sometimes, when people out of the organization try to get some financial information about your company, they are not doing so out of good will but might be spies sent to get some financial details about your organization in order to fight your company.

So, understand that the financial details of the company should not be discussed with anyone who is not a relevant authority in the company.

Leaking your company’s financial affairs with the wrong individuals can pose a security threat to your organization.

Concentration

To be able to avoid errors in transactions or documentation of transactions, give yourself to concentration and shun distractions.

If you are not well placed to deal with distractions in your job, then you are well placed to make mistakes almost on daily basis.

In your working hours, always be sure to have planned your activities to make sure there is no room for activities that may serve as distractions to you.

If not, there is every good chance that you will deliver a poor work to the dismay of your manager or employer.

So, here is what you need to do: Learn to stay away from noisy activities in the organization.

Noisy activities will hamper your ability to focus and concentrate on the job at hand.

Remember you are dealing with figures and the least thing you need is distraction.

Calmness when under pressure

There is no running away from the fact that pressure is part of your job.

It is something no one wants to face in the working place and it is something that can be frustrating and can limit the ability of employees from performing at full capacity.

The funny thing about pressure in the workplace is that it is not totally avoidable as you may wish because pressure comes from different sources and comes as a result of different factors not playing out.

So, it is not entirely avoidable.

Since it is not totally avoidable in the first place, you have to embrace it and develop enough resilience to work even when you are under pressure.

This means that you shouldn’t see pressure as an excuse why you shouldn’t function at full capacity.

Outgrow it and make utmost use of it.

IT skills

Working in a large company that deals with transactions related to accounting demands that you should get a foot hold on the relevant IT skills you will need to employ to make your job an easier one.

Learn it and work with it.

There is potentially no organization or company that does not appreciate an employee who uses his individual IT skills to make his/her job easier.

The world has moved from analogue stage to digital, so everything now is going digital.

You have to embrace the change and make something out of it.

If you can master some IT skills, you will discover that your job can be fun.

What makes your job not to be fun is when you are not able to employ some IT skills to do your job.

It makes your job more laborious and uninteresting. But envisage a situation where you have more aid through the use of basic computer skills, as well as other IT gadgets.

Account Receivable Clerk Skills for Resume

If you are writing a resume or CV for an account receivable clerk’s position, you need to make it impactful by creating a compelling skills section.

You can apply the account receivable clerk skills and qualities discussed above in creating a skills section for your resume/CV that employs/recruiters like.

With a skills section that shows that you have the right qualities and skills for the account receivable clerk job, your resume/CV stands a better chance of being read.

Conclusion

There is no job description that does not demand some skillsets as a prerequisite for succeeding on the job.

Account receivable clerk job position is not an exemption.

So, having this in mind, going through this article has afforded you the knowledge of the skills you need to succeed in this job.

All you have to do is to apply them to your job and produce amazing results for yourself and company.