Management Accountant jobs

Management accountants help shape business decisions based on analysis of financial data. As the name suggests, management accountant jobs are a combination of accountancy and business management. The role involves budgeting and forecasting, auditing and financial analysis.

Assistant management accountants report to the senior management accountant or financial controller, working on projects as and when they are needed. As you progress through your career you may work towards certified management accountant status: a professional accreditation scheme that is considered relatively difficult to pass.

Typical tasks of a management accountant

Management accountants carry out a range of accountancy and finance-related tasks, such as preparing departmental budgets, tracking profit and loss, and forecasting month-end cash flow to ensure business activities are kept on track. This may require in-depth financial analysis in order to produce detailed and thorough reports to guide top-level business decisions.

Senior management accountant jobs typically hold greater responsibility. You may be trusted to negotiate with external stakeholders on major projects, including the financing of those projects via grants and loans. You may need to present complex financial data in a way that can be understood by executives with little to no background in accountancy.

Assistant management accountant jobs are often less structured than other roles, as you provide ad hoc support when and where you are needed. During the in-between times you may be allocated routine tasks including budgeting, preparing accounts and reports, and so on. You should have an excellent grasp of numbers and written communication, an analytical mind, and sufficient computer skills to prepare reports in a clear and comprehensive format.

Qualifications required for a management accountant job

A degree in a finance-related discipline will set your application apart from applications by those who have not completed university education, or who studied a non-finance-related subject. Relevant subjects include accountancy, accounting and finance, plus business and management. A management accountant job has a significant business management element, so a degree in this area can be majorly beneficial even if you did not specifically study accounting or finance as part of your course.

To enter the profession without a degree you may be considered for assistant management accountant jobs at entry-level, and can work your way up via on-the-job experience and continuing professional development (CPD) training. However, it's common to obtain a relevant professional qualification from an organisation like ACCA or CIMA before applying for management accountant jobs.

Hard/soft skills needed for a management accountant job

Management accountant jobs combine hard and soft skills in equal measure. In terms of hard skills management accountants need to be analytical, not only keeping track of finances and using computer skills to compile reports – both numerical and presenting data in a format that non-finance personnel can understand – but also to make recommendations that will help shape business decisions based on forecasts and modelling.

In terms of soft skills, senior management accountants need to be able to coordinate a team of subordinates effectively. You should have a natural ability to spot inefficiencies and ways to improve on them. Good communication skills will be valuable when presenting data, particularly to colleagues and company executives who work outside the finance department.