Redefining Managment Accounting

Generally, I would say I agree with the principles that managerial accounting isn’t the understanding that a “debit is a debit”. That is a layer, or foundation. If the role of an individual is to know that a debit is a debit, then they would be called strictly an accountant. Another layer is piled onto the scope of responsibilities when the title of manager is added. To be a manager requires many more skills than just working the numbers. The author even speaks of the managing accountant’s responsibility of overseeing operations and the efficiency of organizational performance.

However, I would add more to his view of the four pillars of managerial accountants:

The first of these is that one accountant alone cannot overcome organizational culture if it is in opposition of this forward thinking framework. If the company’s culture is not willing to also excel in each of these four pillars, then the accountant alone will not be successful in implementing these skills. Not to say the managing accountant would give up on pushing the pillars in their company, but it would be an extremely difficult battle to fight against.

I would also go so far as to say that these pillars would be well placed in any manager’s skill set. At my work place, many of these ideas and terms are floating around and changing the culture of the company. And they aren’t coming from our Finance department.

The second is that it wouldn’t be easy to implement these pillars. Management isn’t always a given skill and certainly to understand the complexity of the pillars in addition to understanding the accounting aspects is no easy feat. There is much beyond the Figure 1 diagram. The complexity of the questions in each section illustrates the depth of the framework.

The author says it well in the “Champion the Cause” section. He says that there are two pieces that are integral to the understanding of managerial accounting: it “isn’t primarily a compliance-orientated profession” and that...