Management Accounting: Job Profiles, Skills, Challenges and Course Coverage

This report covers job profiles, skills, challenges and course coverage related to management accounting. It includes data analysis and collection table, common and less common skills, challenges faced by management accountants and course coverage of ACCT 6004.

RUNNING HEAD: ACCOUNTING
Management accounting

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Final report
Part 1
Point 1
The data analysis and data collection table shows the job profiles of cost accountant and
management accountant. There are 10 job descriptions provided in the tables, taken from
Australian job websites. The data is collected from the websites such as seek.com, adzuna,
Hudson recruitment, veritas recruitment, careerone, mycareer, indeed and Robert Walter. The
job positions analysed mostly belong to manufacturing sector and some are from engineering
and construction sector. All of them are classified as cost, management and inventory
accountant. The basic and common requirements include that one should be familiar with the
work of preparing reports, budgets and forecasts. In order to get selected, an individual must
possess an accountant degree and should have professional knowledge about analysing costs
and related variances. Along with the jobs also ask for having experience in cost accounting
field and skills related to managing the financial accounts and conducting ad-hoc projects.
One should have good interpersonal skills, strong communication, experience with ERP
systems and great knowledge of Excel. The criteria which relates to cost and management
accounting skill is that one should have a degree of CA, CPA or equivalent. The individual
must be from accounting background and should have a specialized knowledge about the
subject.
Part 2
Point 2
CA, CPA, CIMA and other equivalent courses are the most common and important cost and
management accounting skills which are required for the listed positions. It is important to
study such courses as they are considered as professional course and are highly beneficial in

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getting specialisation in the field of accountant. Also they help in attaining good designation
in an organisation. These courses are very much essential for having a job profile of
accountant. Also they are in demand by every organization who is recruiting for the position
of an accountant. It is necessary for an individual to excel in these courses.
Point 3
The less common skills and knowledge related to cost and management accounting are
generally of short duration which do not attract high designation positions. Courses like
Certified Accountant Technician or a simple undergraduate degree can considered to be the
less common skill required for these job positions. They are not given much priority like CA
or CPA because they do not offer specialized knowledge and are not included in the list of
professional courses. To become an accountant, it is important for the person to possess high
level of knowledge and should be a professional degree holder, as required by the companies.
Point 4
Following are the various challenges faced by management accountants in today’s world:
 They need to be proactive as the companies are demanding those accountants
who can easily and quickly adopt the changes happening in the business as
well as in the surroundings.
 The factors related to the external environment modifies the business
structure and its working conditions. These are globalization, changes in
customer focus and rapidly changing technology. A management accountant is
required to cope up with such changes and deal with them efficiently
(Zainuddin & Sulaiman, 2016).

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 Some of the organizational factors such as changing strategies, products
design, coping up with risk and uncertainty brings out a greater challenge for
accountants.
 Other issues like emergence of new legislations, modifications in
manufacturing process and changes in government rules and regulations also
affect the daily working of the companies and their financial results. To face
them is itself a big challenge for accountants (Mishra, 2011).
Point 5
Topics covered in the course ACCT 6004, concepts, behaviour and estimations of
management accounting costs that have helped in increasing the knowledge about cost and
management skills. Other topics like CVP and variance analysis, ABC costing, budgetary
control also lay more emphasis on cost accounting. These topics specifically mention the
concepts related to accounting and provide special knowledge required for the position of an
accountant. The learning outcomes of this subject covers the roles, responsibilities, nature,
and importance of a management accountant. These outcomes are perfectly aligned to the
requirements of job positions and clearly state the duties and responsibilities of an
accountant.
Point 6
Cash flow and fund flow management are the topics which are not covered in the course.
These topics are focused on the concept of cash management and are included in subject of
management accounting. Cash flow statement indicates the inflow and outflow of the cash
within the business and the cash generated or used in operating, investing and financing
activities (Klemstine & Maher, 2013). On the other side, fund flow deals with the sources and
applications of funds along with the changes in working capital (Sarngadharan, 2011). These

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concepts are in a way essential for understanding the role of a cost or management
accountant. Therefore the knowledge 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.

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References
Klemstine, C. F., & Maher, M. (2013). Studies in Cash Flow Accounting and Analysis (RLE
Accounting): Aspects of the Interface between Managerial Planning, Reporting and
Control and External Performance Measurement. Routledge.
Mishra, D. (2011). Management Accountant: Role & future challenges.
Sarngadharan, M. (2011). Financial analysis for management decisions. PHI Learning Pvt.
Ltd.
Zainuddin, Z. N., & Sulaiman, S. (2016). Challenges faced by management accountants in
the 21st century. Procedia Economics and Finance, 37, 466-470.