Job role: Management Accountant

Management accounting is an occupation that involves associating in management decision making, formulating, planning and performance management systems, and providing knowledge in financial reporting and control to promote management in the preparation and execution of an organisation’s policy. Management accountants are vital figures in influencing the standing and achievement of a firm. The part of the management accountant is to execute a chain of responsibilities to guarantee their establishment’s financial safety, supervising basically all monetary matters and thus assisting to motivate the organisation’s general administration and policy.

Management accountants examine the proceedings that take place in and about a business while bearing in mind the necessities of the business. From this, facts and assessments materialise. The job of a management accountant is to interpret these assessments and facts into knowledge that will at the end of the day be used to guide the administrative process.

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What can be expected of a management accountant?

Management accountants look after a firm’s financial records. They counsel the board of directors about the financial repercussions of business choices to aid development and profit. So the duties of a management accountant are numerous and usually vary from employer to employer but their basic function as a management accountant is being responsible for part of the firm’s financial activities and dealings. Now some of the basic duties a management accountant may be responsible for may include:

  • Maintaining the budget of the organisation
  • Building the business strategy of the organisation
  • To perform the financial scrutiny
  • To coordinate accounting processes
  • To handle the payment of tax for the organisation that employs them
  • To assist in the strategic planning of the firm
  • Controlling and forecasting income and expenditure
  • To manage the connections between the stakeholders and the auditors
  • To advice means by which the parent organisation can minimise costs and improve revenues and maximise profits

Management accountants are always needed to keep an organisation’s business economic activities in perfect order and this simply means that the skills of a management accountant are in high demand these days.

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Skills a management accountant should possess

Employers in this modern era are not just looking for individuals that call themselves management accountants. As a replacement for merely keeping balance sheets and financial statements, management accountants must make use of ingenuity, leadership and conceivable knowledge to recognise business threats and prospects and recommend answers. Here are some of the skills and features that distinguish management accountants from other business experts in the business world;

Communication skills: this is arguably the greatest skill a management accountant should possess as it can aid in establishing an unbreakable bond with various financiers of the organisation that employs them. Management accountants must be able to exhibit impeccable written and oral communication skills as one of the major parts of being a management accountant implicate converting large amounts of measurable statistics into precise and brief relevant information for the benefit of the stakeholders and board of directors of the organisation.

The propensity for technical practices: Management accountants work in both public and private organisations that embody a variation of industries. Though no one anticipates the accountants to be specialists in technical or operational subjects, he or she regularly have a detailed working knowledge of the schemes put together by his or her establishments as well as the exclusive production procedures employed by his or her companies. This knowledge allows management accountants to generate more precise cost evaluations during estimating activities. Knowledge of assembly procedures also enables accountants to draft up expenditure plans that make use of readily accessible finance in the most resourceful fashion. Input from management accountants with technical and operational expertise can help other managers in their pursuit of the finest capacity application and resource apportionment.

Logical skills: dealing with numbers and arithmetic is not the one and the only purpose of management accountants, management accountants can also use economic statistics to aid in the projection of economic necessities for sanctioned operational resourcefulness. For instance, management accountants gather statistics from balance sheets, revenue reports, and statements of cash movement to quantify performance for several business actions. By examining incomes and expenditures across business activities, management accountants can regulate methods to budget and spend funds to make the most of profits or diminish expenses.

Awareness of commercial nitty-gritty:  Management accountants would find it difficult carrying out their jobs if they did not have a comprehensive awareness of an extensive variety of business purposes like funding and economics. Management accountants time and again work with older professional front-runners in an advice-giving role when they assess the firm’s portfolio. These accountants use finance and economics ideologies to evaluate the significance of potential investments; they can recognise and endorse achievements that will in the offing move their establishments closer to realising long-term objectives. Management accountants can also ascertain dangerous investments to evade and recommend divestiture of floundering business actions based on quantifiable investigation and market developments.

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What qualifications are required of a management accountant?

In order to become a commissioned management accountant, one has to study with a professional accountancy body. The requirements of a management accountant by employers may vary and depend on the size of the organization and where it is located. Established organizations may ask for a master’s degree in accounting or any business related course while smaller organizations may settle for a bachelor’s degree in the same field. Gaining employment in big establishments can be more competitive than with lesser firms. Large businesses have a tendency to employ workers at certain periods of the year, while smaller firms may recruit at any period and publicize locally. Professional educations embark on in-service are normally required for development.

How much experience is required?

Gaining work experience is not essential but can be very much useful. Experience can consist of holiday assignments or part-time employment that offers business experience.

The salary structure of a management accountant

Preliminary earnings vary significantly and depend heavily on location and size of the firm. The average salary for fresh graduates aiming to become management accountants is around $25,000. Salaries rise considerably after gaining the appropriate qualifications. The average salary of an individual in possession of a professional qualification is around $30,000. Salaries at high-ranking stages range from about $40,000 to about $110,000. Individuals with professional qualifications are more likely to rise to the position of executive manager or CEO.

Job outlook

Accounting experts with a motivation in management can make waves in their chosen field. Innumerable entities, companies, corporations, and establishments are in need of qualified management accountants to consolidate their assets and make the most of productivity, and job growth is expected to be strong in this occupation. While forthcoming jobs in the accounting business are largely reliant on the altering state of the economy, it is particularly vital for management accountants to be conversant on the newest financial laws and principles affecting industries as well as small businesses. In 2010, there were about 1 million accounting and auditing jobs, and approximately one-quarter of those jobs were in accounting, tax planning, bookkeeping, and payroll services, according to the BLS. While opportunities in this occupation may continue to waver according to economic shifts over the next couple of years, companies will likely constantly appreciate specific management knowledge, along with a forward-thinking education and professional abilities.

Career progression of the management accountant

The career progression of an ambitious management accountant is fully dependent on the successful achievement of professional qualifications. Many individuals will use their financial management skills to become successful capitalists. As the world is swiftly changing, a lot of graduates today will ultimately work in roles that we cannot yet picture. A qualification in management accountancy will throw open gates to a variety of career routes that are thought-provoking, fast-paced and worthwhile. Individuals that want to begin a career in management accountancy can get on track promptly, possibly by reading extensively about nationwide and trade journals, assisting one to build facts of existing improvements. Work experience, preferably in the commercial or economic division, is significant in indicating an individual’s readiness to learn and improve on one’s knowledge of the business atmosphere. But picking up office skills can be realised in several diverse ways and most will be relevant if one can explain what he has learned in terms of expertise, such as using statistics to solve complications, making extrapolations and responding speedily to improvements in one’s organisation.

Being a management accountant is a challenging but fulfilling professional decision that demands an extensive variety of expertise for one to be successful. An individual will have to be versatile when it comes to additions and subtractions. But simply being able to play around with numbers would not be enough; one would need to be able to see the patterns in data and use past experiences to make calculations and guide business choices. Management accountants have to be able to put on the thinking that, so being conscious of international business, being up to date with the news to see how business choices and accomplishments influence markets around the globe is also essential in the career path of a management accountant.

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