Management Accounting Essay -- Management

Finances Future: Challenge or threat?-Management Accounting Missing Article This article is a bout the changing demands of the business world and the impact it will have on management accounting. According to this article the business role that management accountants play will be significantly different in the future. While this change is inevitable it is unclear how many of today's accountants will be able or willing to adjust to the change and conform to what is being called "New Accounting." Accountants in the future will have to play a much larger role in their organization. Becoming a change agent, someone who can help accelerate change in an organization. This is a problem for most accountants who are used to doing the same job year after year with little to no change. Since the introduction of the computer management has recognized that the PC can perform in much less time many of the tedious number crunching activities accountants spend hours doing. As a result of this accountants are being asked to do more and become analytical and proactive, looking into the future and joining with management in making and taking responsibility for all those tough decisions. Management expects the accounting department in addition to its role processing transactions to serve as the central information hub and purveyor of all sorts of data stored on the computers. Accountants doing the same time that all these changes were happening due to PC were also facing change due to the new idea of "reengineering." This is the idea of going beyond seeking efficiencies and asking is this business process really necessary?. And if it is how can it be designed to better serve the business. If a task is unnecessary then the people who perfor... ... constant as learning should be in order to stay competitive. With the introduction of the PC accountants need to step up and prove that their role is still necessary focusing not only on balancing the books but serving as a center of information for the organization. In the future I think that this is what management accounting will be all about. Crunching number is a job better left up to the computer systems. By integrating all the functions of the finance department, finance becomes a chief driver of the decision making process. Accountants in the future must be able to adapt to change, take risks, and do more thinking and analyzing than number crunching and reporting. The new role of management accountants as the data keeper for the entire organization makes them the backbone of today's organizations which is a far larger job than balancing the books on time.