Certified Management Accountants work in a company’s internal financial transactions, providing valuable services to help run organizations. The certification covers business, economics, accounting, management theory, and other current business topics. They typically work at the beginning of a company’s financial transaction process, analyzing business decisions and taking a quantitative approach.
In the accounting industry, there are two common career fields: finance and management. Where financial accounting is the professional field known for auditing and taxation services, managerial accounting focuses more on a company’s internal financial transaction. A certified management accountant primarily works directly for a business, recording and reporting transactions for internal review by business owners and managers. Most accountants in this industry work in a management accounting profession, as companies need individuals with the technical knowledge of financial numbers to help run organizations.
Certified Management Accountant certification is a professional license offered by some accounting organizations. The primary focus of the license is business, economics, accounting, management theory and other current business topics. While it is well known and popular in the business sector, it is generally seen as secondary to the Certified Public Accountant license, which is more popular in the field of public and/or financial accounting.
The accounting profession has undergone significant changes in recent decades. Rather than simply being a number cruncher, the accountant now provides valuable services to companies regarding business decisions. This shift has led to the importance of certification for management accountants, which provides accountants with a more comprehensive understanding of the business. Individuals with this certification are now commonplace in a variety of industries including information technology, engineering, consulting or other sectors.
The lowest position typically occupied by a certified accountant is a staff, which provides general or specialist accounting services. General ledger services can include posting accounting entries to the general ledger, reconciling accounts, preparing management reports, creating income statements, collecting data from other departments, and a variety of other tasks.
Specialized tasks for this type of accountant include allocating production costs to goods or services, creating budgets for a company, creating production forecasts, or providing ad hoc reports on business activity to management. The administrative accountant profession is commonly associated with the manufacturing and production industries, which is the main reason for their cost allocation role.
A certified management accountant typically works at the beginning of a company’s financial transaction process, meaning these individuals are responsible for putting together the information seen by other individuals. While these accountants may work with a financial accounting firm’s external accountants, they typically provide more value to other stakeholders in the firm. Management accountants use their business knowledge to help analyze business decisions and take a quantitative approach to the historically qualitative decision-making process.
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