Life as a management accountant

A key focus of management accounting is planning for the future. Management accountants develop more detailed reports than financial accountants.

Rob Johnson, Strategic Planning Manager at EE, explains they have a five-year plan and part of his role is to own and drive forward key elements. The work that underpins the plan needs to be completed with granularity and rigour to ensure optimised decision making, and part of his role is to ensure this transpires.

The quality of a business’s decision making often affects how it will out-perform competitors. Management accountants can analyse data in the context of the business, understanding what data is relevant and meaningful to make key decisions.

Joanne Beattie, Assistant Finance Controller at Nestlé, describes the purpose of her role is to, “provide a comprehensive support service to the factory, to generate data which allows the factory management team to make informed decisions.”

Management accounting considers actual performance and compares it to goals and the future outlook. This information is used to identify issues that may arise in budgets or production changes and developing alternative strategies.

John Anderson, Finance Lead at the Department of Transport, explains that “the problem-solving techniques which I’ve picked up have been invaluable to me in approaching and tackling issues which often involve high levels of ambiguity, complexity and uncertainty.”