Management accountants play a crucial role in business operations of enterprises. All the information they provide is a key factor to help managers plan, monitor, and operate the business effectively.
What is a management accountant? What is the function of management accountants in businesses? What does a person doing this job need to be successful? What are the current salaries and job opportunities? Navigos Search will help you have an overview of this job through the following information. Let's find it out!
1. What is a management accountant?
A management accountant is a person who grasps the financial status of an organization, helping managers make effective operating decisions. Information from management accountants is incredibly important for operating, controlling, and evaluating businesses.
Management accountant duty in businesses is to provide financial and non-financial information. This information is collectively known as management information. Before providing information to the business leadership, management accountants must get to grips of the purpose of that information.
Management accountant concept
2. The important role of management accountants in businesses
Management accountants play a vital role in providing information to the board of directors for making decisions. In general, the prime role of management accountants is associated with 4 tasks of managers as follows:
- Building plans: Leaders always make business plans at the beginning of the fiscal year to achieve expected revenue and profits. During the planning process, business managers need to link all resources to achieve the set goals.
- Implementing plans: Managers decide how to best link the organization, people, and resources so that the plan is always implemented effectively. They also oversee daily operations to ensure the organization runs smoothly.
- Controlling plans: After implementation, business managers check and evaluate the plan. During the control process, managers compare actual activities with previously established plans. In this way, they can determine which stages of work are unsatisfactory, which departments take responsibility for this, and what needs to be changed or supplemented to complete the set goals.
- Evaluating and making decisions: Use management accounting formulas to give different options. Decision-making is a function throughout all stages of the business management process, including planning, implementation, inspection, and evaluation. The decision-making function will be applied throughout the operation of the business.
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The important role of management accountants
3. Similarities and differences between management accounting and financial accounting
Similarities
Both management accounting and financial accounting rely on data collected from an organization's underlying accounting system. That system includes procedures, personnel, and computer systems for the purpose of synthesizing and storing the business's financial data.
Differences
You can visualize the difference between management accounting and financial accounting through the table below:
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Differences
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Management accounting
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Financial accounting
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Subjects of use
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- Inside the business includes owners, directors, managers, supervisors,...
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- Outside the business includes shareholders, lenders, clients and the Government.
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Information characteristics
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- Not required to follow general accounting principles and standards.
- Information is expressed in both physical and value forms.
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- It's required to comply with international principles and standards.
- Information is expressed in the form of value.
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Legality
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- Internal, under the management authority of each organization.
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- Legal-related, complying with State regulations.
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Form and time of usage report
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- Report goes in depth into each department of the business.
- Report by day, week, month, quarter, year
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- Comprehensive report for the entire enterprise.
- Report by quarter and year.
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4. New trends of management accounting in the modern era
Management accountants are witnessing new trends in the industry with rapid changes in science and technology. In the past, accountants often spent most of their work time on daily accounting operations such as recording books, comparing transaction information, making books, tracking, managing inventory, and preparing financial reports. Nowadays, these jobs are different.
Accounting software and financial applications such as MISA, CRM, and ERP have helped accountants save a lot of time. Instead, accountants will spend time analyzing, planning, estimating, forecasting, budgeting, providing supporting information, and advising management on issues related to their expertise.
That change further promotes and affirms the increasingly important role of management accountants in businesses. In the future, management accounting may replace separate financial accounting as before. Business owners will need accountants with expertise and the ability to advise the Board of Directors to best manage the business.
New trends in the profession
5. Career opportunities for management accountants in the digital age
As mentioned, management accountants play a crucial role in the management and strategic development of businesses. According to Mr. Jeffrey C. Thomson - President and CEO of IMA: "There are numerous career opportunities for Management Accountants in Vietnam. Currently, many world professional organizations are available in Vietnam and many organizations have been established in Vietnam such as VAA and VACPA. The Ministry of Finance is also an organization that has provided much support for management accounting activities in Vietnam in recent years."
Management accounting will create a lot of value for people in particular and society in general along with macroeconomic development. Thus, there will be many opportunities to develop the management accounting profession in the future.
6. Necessary skills of management accountants
Management accountants must be well-trained in Accounting, Finance, or Economics to gain the most thorough professional knowledge. With a critical role in businesses, employers also require management accountants to have relevant work experience, understand accounting laws, regulations, and policies related to the industry, and be proficient in Accounting applications and software to serve the work well.
In addition, the management accountants must also feature:
Ability to analyze logically
One of the significant duties that management accountants must undertake is financial analysis of the business activities of organizations and enterprises. Analytical skills and logical thinking will help management accountants obtain accurate information and plan handily for businesses to cut costs.
Communication skills
Management accountants are the ones who monitor and supervise employees, so they need to communicate well to effectively exchange and cooperate with colleagues in other departments. Besides, these skills also help them communicate and report information to the board of directors clearly and accurately.
Arrangement and organization skills
With management and supervision responsibilities, management accountants must know how to organize and arrange work reasonably and scientifically and prioritize more important tasks. Through that, they can save time and help the organization achieve better results.
Time management skills
The amount of work that management accountants undertake is relatively huge. Thus, time management skills will help them complete work in an orderly, scientific, and quick manner with better quality.
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Professional capacity, experience and skills requirements
7. What is the salary of a management accountant?
The current salary of management accountants is relatively attractive. Depending on each business and candidate's professional capacity, experience, and skills, people working in this position can receive different income.
The common salary for this position ranges from 12 to 17 million VND per month. For large businesses, candidates with high qualifications and experience can reach a salary of 15 - 20 million VND per month.
Recruiting management accountants at Navigos Search
It's not easy to recruit talented management accountants, especially when the labor market is "thirsty for talent". Businesses may spend a lot of time and money but still can't recruit the right person, or even recruit the wrong person. For recruitment to be effective and to successfully find a good management accountant, your business should use the recruitment service at Navigos Search - the No. 1 headhunter brand in Vietnam.
Navigos Search's strength is featuring a team of experienced recruitment experts and a wide network of operations. Based on an effective and professional recruitment process, our experts will accurately grasp the business's recruitment requirements to search, recommend, and bring you candidates for management accounting or any other field.
In addition, with 375,000+ senior candidates, 85,000+ senior management candidates, and search results that are always retained, Navigos Search is willing to meet the middle and senior-level personnel recruitment needs of all organizations and businesses. With outstanding strengths, businesses will have a high chance of finding talent.
Leading middle and senior-level talent hunting company in Vietnam
Quickly contact us if your business is in need of recruiting a management accountant or any other middle or senior-level position. We always try our best to maintain our position as Vietnam's leading talent hunting service provider!
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