Roles changing for management accountants.Management accountants now spend more time wrestling wrestling, sport in which two unarmed opponents grapple with one another. The object is to secure a fall, i.e., cause the opponent to lose balance and fall to the floor, and ultimately to pin the supine opponent's shoulders to the floor, through the use of body with strategic issues than ever before. New research revealed they spend less of their time performing traditional accounting functions and more time on strategic planning Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy, including its capital and people. , internal consulting and computer-based operations. Long-term Long-term Three or more years. In the context of accounting, more than 1 year. long-term 1. Of or relating to a gain or loss in the value of a security that has been held over a specific length of time. Compare short-term. strategic planning topped the list of work activities most critical to company success for the majority of accountants in business and industry (53%) surveyed in Counting More, Counting Less: The 1999 Practice Analysis of Management Accounting, published by the Institute of Management Accountants The Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) is a professional organization headquartered in Montvale, New Jersey consisting of over 70,000 members worldwide. The IMA is dedicated to advancing the role of the management accountant and financial manager within the business (IMA (Interactive Multimedia Association, Annapolis, MD) An earlier trade association founded in 1988 originally as the Interactive Video Industry Association. It provided an open process for adopting existing technologies and was involved in subjects such as networked services, scripting ). Planning was followed by working on computer systems and operations, process improvement and performing financial and economic analyses. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. the accountants surveyed, internal consulting, strategic planning, and working on computer systems now occupy more time than they did five years ago. Conversely con·verse 1 intr.v. con·versed, con·vers·ing, con·vers·es 1. To engage in a spoken exchange of thoughts, ideas, or feelings; talk. See Synonyms at speak. 2. , accounting systems and financial reporting take less time. "Now accountants and financial managers are part of the management team and part of the decision-making process," said IMA President C.S. "Bud" Kulesza. Where once a management accountant's main role was simply to identify problems, now he or she is called on to provide solutions. "In response, accountants and financial managers are stepping forward with good analyses and ideas on how to solve issues" he said. University accounting departments are also responding to the challenge of the changing skills accountants need to perform their new roles. Addressing the second key finding of the study--that accounting graduates enter the work force without the fundamental skills they need to succeed in their careers--Kulesza said universities were using the IMA study to modify their current curriculums to prepare students with the new skill requirements. "This report on the state of our profession illuminates the changes necessary within academia, corporate America and professional organizations." |
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