Challenges Faced by Management Accountants in 21st Century Essay.

Job Positions Related to Cost and Management Accountant

Discuss About The Challenges Faced By Management Accountants.

This report contains a description of 10 job positions related to cost and management accountant. It lay down the role and responsibilities of the job profiles and the knowledge required for them. It also includes the cost and management accounting skills needed to be pursued by the individual for getting selected for a job of accountant. Lastly, a conclusion is been given stating the importance of cost and management accounting.

No.	Position Title	Sector(Industry or Government)	Position Description	Date Listed	Website Address	Search word or phrases
1	Cost Accountant	Private sector	Work related to maintenance and analysing of company cost and reporting to CFO	16-Apr-18	www.adzuna.com.au	Cost Accountant
2	Management Accountant	Non- Profit Organization	Providing support to various units of Cabrini health and preparing budgets and reports	12-Apr-18	www.adzuna.com.au	Accountant
3	Management Accountant EL1	Government	Providing financial planning support to the managers, reporting to the budgets and developing financial plans	16-Apr-18	www.jobsearch.gov.au	Management Accountant
4	APS6 Management Accountant	Private sector	Responsible for collecting budget data and focusing on Corporate Internal budgets	12-Apr-18	www.jobsearch.gov.au	Accountant
5	Cost Accountant	Private sector	Reporting to Administration and Accounting Manager. analyse cost variances and report on product costing	13-Apr-18	www.seek.com.au	Cost
6	Interim Project / Cost Accountant	Private	Work with finance director and reviewing various projects and existing business	16-Apr-18	www.seek.com.au	Cost Accountant
7	Management Accountant-Manufacturing	Private	Analysing variance, cost estimates and preparing monthly reports	16-Apr-18	www.carrerone.com.au	Accountant
8	Cost Accountant - Manufacturing	Private	Analyse cost accounting data, create and maintain production BOMs and analyse changes in product design and many more	13-Apr-18	www.carrerone.com.au	cost
9	Senior Management Accountant	Private	Maintain the integrity of the standard cost system, analyse production variances and oversee product costs	16-Apr-18	www.seek.com.au	management
10	Cost Accountant	Private	Forecasting and budgeting, annual stocktake and hoc accounting duties	16-Apr-18	www.carrerone.com.au	cost accountant

No.	Position Title	Position Requirements (responsibilities)	Cost and Management Accountingcriteria required for position	Alignment with learning outcomes of ACCT 6004
1	Cost Accountant	· The key role is to focus on the analysis and maintenance of company costs. · Reporting to CFO includes actual and budget costing analysis. · Tracking of CAPEX and OPEX and its analysis. · Making sure that the cost are been accounted in consistent manner. · Budgeting and reporting on annual basis.	· CA and CPA qualification is required. · 3 to 5 years’ experience in same field. · High standard interpersonal skills and communication skills. · Having an experience from a manufacturing entity. · Higher knowledge of Ms Excel and ERP systems.	Yes
2	Management Accountant	· Required to work with Financial Planning and Analysis team at Cabrini Health. · Giving support to several units and department of the company. · Preparing budgets, reports and forecasting. · Directing reporting to the Director Financial Planning & Analysis is required.	· Great communication skills. · Strong financial analysis skills. · Advance Excel and Microsoft office skills. · Cost and management accounting knowledge. · Ability to control finance and accounting practices.	Yes
3	Management Accountant EL1	· Coordinating the budgets preparation and CBMS reporting. · Developing methodologies and procedures for budgets preparations. · Preparation of Monthly reports and costing of NPP's.	· An accounting degree and membership of CA and CPA is required. · Experience of Big 4 consultancy and government firms is necessary. · Strong reporting and financial modelling skills.	Yes
4	APS6 Management Accountant	· Need to focus on Corporate Internal budgets. · Responsible for collating the budget data in FMIS department. · Help in taking key financial decisions.	· Having experience in federal government department related to corporate budgeting. · Good stakeholder management skills.	No.
5	Cost Accountant	· To coordinate and resolve the inventory cycle counts variances. · Maintain stock accuracy and prepare reports on inventory levels. · BOM creation and its maintenance. · Analysis of product design and development of budgets.	· An accounting or business degree. · At least 5 years experience in cost accounting disciplines. · Flexible and proactive approach. · Experience in ERP systems, especially Epicor. · Knowledge about conducting stock takes.	Yes
6	Interim Project / Cost Accountant	· Assisting the finance director in different projects. · Working on the projects both internationally and domestically.	· Qualified accountant. · Experience holder in project or cost accounting. · Ability to understand and forecast the assumptions. · Strong communicator and having experience in hire company.	Yes
7	Management Accountant-Manufacturing	· Analysing variance and reporting to CFO. · BOMs and Costing. · Prepare monthly reports for senior managers. · Making product cost estimates and cash flow projections.	· CA or CPA qualified. · Experience in a manufacturing unit. · Having business partnering skills. · SAP skills and clear understanding of business process.	Yes
8	Cost Accountant - Manufacturing	· Require to analyse the cost accounting data. · Develop BOMs, maintain periodic cost and set up WIP, raw materials and FG items. · Analysing the effects on cost due to change in product design, raw materials and others. · Reconciling the accounts and reporting to financial queries.	· CA/CPA qualified and experience in cost accounting. · Have used Pronto. · Experience holder in management accounting duties. · Strong Excel skills. · Know how to create models.	Yes
9	Senior Management Accountant	· Improving the integrity of standard costing system. · Analysis of production variances. · Project cost overview and P&L meetings with senior managers. · Monitor KPIs and prepare budgets. · Ad hoc projects consist of financial modelling.	· Experience of 5 years or more in standard or manufacturing costing environment. · CPA or CA degree holder. · Experience with MRP system or MGFPro. · Good communication and problem solving skills. · Strong analytical and system accounting skills.	Yes
10	Cost Accountant	· Budgeting and forecasting. · Reporting to the management. · Performing month end duties. · Annual stocktake. · Inventory and manufacturing costing.	· CA/ CPA qualified or either pursuing the same. · Possess 3 years experience in field of cost accounting. · Outstanding problem solving skills. · Friendly nature and experience with MYOB EXO.	Yes

In the above data analysis and data collection table, the two job profiles are been explained named as cost accountant and management accountant. The 10 job position of these profile is founded from the Australian job websites and are been mention in the above tables. The data is collected from different job websites such as seek, adzuna, careerone, and jobsearch.gov.au. Mostly the positions belong to the private sector and are classified as cost and management accountants in different fields. Basic and common requirements include that one should be familiar with the work of preparing reports, budgets and forecasts. The individual must possess the degree of an accountant and should have proper knowledge about analysing the various costs, finding the reasons for inaccuracies and variances, managing the financial accounts and inventory of a business, conducting ad-hoc projects and to support the other finance managers in decision making process.

For being selected, one should have good interpersonal skills, strong communication, experience with ERP systems and great knowledge of Excel. As per the cost and management accounting skill, one should possess a degree of CA, CPA or equivalent. The individual must have a solid accounting background to get selected for the profiles.

The most common and important cost and management accounting skills are CA, CPA, CIMA and other equivalent courses. These are the key essentials for a job of cost and management accountant. It is important to pursue such courses as they are highly beneficial in getting high level education, specialisation and professional knowledge. Also they help in attaining good designation in an organisation. These are considered as professional courses and are in demand by every organization who is recruiting for the position of an accountant. To get the position one need to excel in these courses as they are the basic requirements for the same.
Apart from the professional degrees there are many diploma courses in accounts which do not receive much priority for the position of accountant. They are generally of short duration and do not attract a good job profile. A simple undergraduate degree can considered has less common skill required for these job positions. They are not highly prioritized like CA or CPA because do not provide high level specialisation and are generally considered on a basic level. To be a management and cost accountant, higher professional skills are required which can only be ascertained by pursuing the specialized courses.
Now days, there are various challenges faced by management accountants as teh companies are demanding more proactive accountants who can easily and quickly adopt the changes occurring in the environment. Some of them are:

The external or environmental factors that bring changes in business environment. Such as globalization, changes in customer focus and rapidly changing technology (Zainuddin & Sulaiman, 2016).
Some of the organizational factors also turned out to be a great challenge for management accountants as they need to comply with the changing strategies, products design and cope up with risk and uncertainty.
Other challenges like emergence of new legislations, changes in manufacturing methods, government based modifications also affect the working pattern and daily operations. To face them is a big challenge for accountants (Mishra, 2011)

In the course ACCT 6004, topic related to the context and nature of management accounting costs which includes its concepts, behaviour and estimation have helped in increasing the knowledge about cost and management skills. Planning and budget control, CVP analysis, variance analysis, ABC costing are another topics which lay more emphasis on cost accounting. The learning outcomes of this subject explain the nature, importance, current roles and responsibilities of a management accountant and also analyse the organisational issues. These outcomes are aligned to the job requirements to the great extent as they help in a better understanding of the accountant’s responsibilities and the concept of cost and management.

Topics like cash flow management and fund flow management are not covered in the course. They are also a part of management accounting concept and focuses on the concept of cash management. Inflow and outflow of cash is been understood with cash flow statement and source and applications of funds is provided by fund flow statement (Jury, 2012). The cash generated from operating, investing and financing activities is shown in cash flow whereas fund flow shows the changes in working capital of a company (Palanivelu, 2007).The knowledge about such topic should also be necessary for performing the duties and responsibilities of a management accountant. So, as per the understanding these topics should also be included in course ACCT6004.

Conclusion

From the above report, it can be concluded that cost and management accounting skills and knowledge are the basic requirements for the job position of cost accountant and management accountant. These job positions perfectly align with the learning outcomes to ACCT 6004 as they clearly states the roles and duties of a accountant.

References

Jury, T. (2012). Cash flow analysis and forecasting: the definitive guide to understanding and using published cash flow data (Vol. 653). John Wiley & Sons.

Mishra, D. (2011). Management Accountant: Role & future challenges.

Palanivelu, V. R. (2007). Accounting for management. Firewall Media.

Zainuddin, Z. N., & Sulaiman, S. (2016). Challenges faced by management accountants in the 21st century. Procedia Economics and Finance, 37, 466-470.

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