Changing In The Role Of Management Accountant Accounting Essay

Changing In The Role Of Management Accountant seam relationship EssayAbstractThis essay gives an overview of the changing division of steering take and the commission history practices. An idea of how these departs were developed and the factors canful the changes what were the reasons for implementing the changes, what were the main drivers and to what design these changes ar now existence practice in the real championship world?IntroductionOver the few decades- many writers score pointed to the scarper of Johnson and Kaplan (1987) as an organ in this respect that in that location has been a evoke in the expectation of solicitude comptroller. This essay is a brief overview of why, how, and to what effect there has been a change in the role of concern overtop over the last three decades. In the past decades business milieu has changed significantly, this is mainly beca sp eradicate of the changes in technology and ever growing demands of business managers wh ole(a) around the globe. These changes defend brought a significant level of change in economical factors of business world and counselling be is no exception. And with these changes attention account system as a whole is effected, it has brought changes in write up system carcass and techniques and has been subject to various debates as to bring changes in the function of accounting system. Nevertheless, there have been mainly dickens types of development adoption of unexampled tools and techniques which enhances accounting practice, and on the other hand change in the role of management comptroller, which is towards acting more(prenominal) than than(prenominal) than in decision reservation and advisory sooner than solely focusing on providing selective teaching.In the following sections this essay pass on give a brief idea of the main reason behind the changes and how these changes effected the management accounting practices and to what goal these changes ar adapted by the accounting sector.Reasons for the changesThe ever changing environmental and technological factors has affected the orbicular thrift in past few decades, and accounting and finance is a key player in running any economy. And as being a major factor in running any economy accounting practices has suffered significantly. But the focus in this essay is on management accounting and its practitioner and why, how and to what extent there has been a change in their practice.Laboring under the shadow of financial reporting, auditing and taxation, on number of do management accounting has escaped the spotlight of critics. Often management accounting and the role of management accountant is relegated to the lower crust of accounting, and was limited to the role of organisational book keeping and budgeting and some clippings only to the extent of mandatory university or professional body courses. But if we look in this numerate from historical point of view management a ccounting was and to some extent still considered as a dull profession.We can say that receivable to globalization of markets which have change magnitude competition, and now markets argon more volatile, where answer time is very little for companies to act. Advancement in information and product technologies, which have reduce the time of information processing by accounting specialist and has enabled other organizational staff to take up tasks by themselves which were previously labeled for accountants.iFurthermore systems like SAP ar comely more common in multinational companies, and in some middling size companies. A fresh survey on this topic has too proved that there has been a change in needs of mangers information this might be because of the changing style of organizational structure. In recent years ascribable to severe competition among organizations of being on top, and where change is necessary because of different market conditions, and of course different bu siness strategies utilise in different organizations. All these factors are the reason for the change in the practice of management accountants.Implementing the changes and its EffectsIf we summarize the recent surveys on changing role of management accountant, we will see that there are two types of factors that have brought a change in the environment of management accounting operations. Externals factors have forced organization to change there internal structures to make out with ever improving technological industry. The 21st century management accountants have developed into a multi-functional engine and are more involved in accounting matters than before.Now managers need more information than before, for decision-making and relevant organizational matters needed for profitable outcome. Internal organizational factors like decision making require more advance information and efficient modes are postulate to perform such tasks. So with that majority of the information manag ement accountant have these geezerhood are computerized and are easily accessible at all levels of the organization and managers who can immediately see their variances and monitor their surgery daily. These new development has replaced old methods where managers were able to see the progress at the end of the month. During a conversation between CIMA members it was stated now systems are such that managers can generate information without reference to the financial analysts. So both have access to the equivalent information. But they both use it in different ways. That has been a major change.A variety of name are used to describe the new role of management accountant is or should be aspiring, which include modern business-oriented accountant (Granlund and Lukka, 1998b), business confederate (Siegal and Sorenson, 1999), internal business consultants (Burns and Vaivio, 2001), strategic management consultant (Holtzman, 2004), or hybridizing accountant (Burns and Baldvinsdottir , 2005). Nevertheless, theme was one way or the other same regarding the new role.iiBut the matter of fact is the role of accountant is more important than before, not only in the corporate level, but overly at national and international level. The main focus of management accountant has evermore been to improve their organizations performance and profitability, but now due to changes in different environmental and economical factors their approach has changed in recent time for comfortably.Noticeable change over time is that in years before, a great deal of management accounting work was driven by the need of compliance and control. But now, emphasis on compliance and control are declining, while factors like competitive stay has risen due to increased competition, greater customer focus, importance of quality and of course globalization.The increased emphasis on competitive support now require management accountant to have strong analytical and communication skills. Furthermor e, they now support and process managers, and are directly involved in decision making. They are alike involved in long and short-term planning, they besides have to develop systems to support and provide essential information needed. With these new developments management accountant must directly involved in formulation, and the implementing business strategies.To what convey there has been changes forthwith, as compared to previous decades management accounting practices has changed quite a bit, now management accountant has to reconcile the broad view of business. Today management accountant are more effective and efficient. Management accounting is changing, and reason for these changes is the factors. These factors are as mentioned above changes in the economic and amicable structures, globalization issues, changes in the markets, and technological developments and last but not least need for organizations to become customer focused.The focus have shifted from historical st ewardship to more advance role of strategic planning and feed forward control (pierce, 2001). Now armed with advance skills, new technology, more analytical skills and leadership qualities the new management accountants are emerging with the change.Management accountant these days spend their time on strategic management accounting with a view of broadening the concept of traditional management accounting. The term strategic management accounting was first introduced by Ken Simmonds in 1981. And CIMA describes this oral communication as a form of management accounting that focuses on information which relate to factors external to the firm, as well as non-financial information, and internally generated information.This integration is now more important because it enables managers to see the day-to-day development of the business process. How these processes are being handled and what will be there outcome, and that way this is seen as an important function of the new and more adva nce management accountant. And with the changing role of management accountant, in some companies their job titles are also changing as mentioned above like business advisor, business analyst and few others.Furthermore, some surveys have suggested that there will be more changes in the role of management accounting, management accountants will be taking up the duties of handling matters like designing, developing and operating financial and management information system.The trend is that management accountant is now working more with business units, rather than working as an individual unit as happened in the past. This is mainly because of the shift in the duties of the management accountant and changes in the organizational structures. Now management accountant work alongside managers, engineers and so on.iiiIn some cases it is noted that management accountant are more involved in issues of corporate strategy, they are more involved and are not acting as an individual unit, and t his is the reason the need for management accountant to be more skillful, advance are becoming a mandatory qualification.To sum up the situation of the role changing or we can also say that taking it to next level the factors vie a very important role, factors such as technology, restructuring, globalization, takeovers/mergers, new accounting techniques and so on. Management accountants are adapting to the change which is not only dowery the organizations to be more effective in making profit, but it is also improving the dull image of the management accountant.ConclusionIn the end we can say that the changing roles of management accountant are for the good of the profession. As to compete in this fast growing economical world, with all the development that are taking place around us accounting and finance plays an important role in any successful economy.As a whole the role of management accountant have travel into another level. With all the new techniques and technological adva ncement have brought new softwares which have made work easy and faster for the management accountant, which is always a need in this fast pace world where markets are very competitive and margin of error is very high.