Who among Mudalovers currently works as an accountant or is studying accounting-related knowledge? Surely you are no longer unfamiliar with numbers in various forms, whether in the form of salaries, taxes, income and so on.
Accounting is indeed suitable for Mudalovers who are interested in working in the financial sector. This includes managing finances, analyzing company revenues, interpreting company numbers and most importantly, creating financial reports.
For this reason, it can be said that accounting is not a field that is suitable for everyone. This is because it requires precision and patience in the process. Errors in financial calculations can have a negative impact on the company as a whole.
Even though the work is hard and the responsibility is great, accountants, the name for people who work in the accounting field, will also receive appropriate recognition if they can carry out their duties well according to the company’s needs.
This time, Mudalovers will discuss one of the important activities in the field of accounting, namely management accounting. Together we will discuss things such as the meaning of management accounting, what activities are carried out in management accounting and management accounting methods.
Understanding Management Accounting
One simple definition of the meaning of management accounting is the provision of information and decision making related to finance and non-financial related decisions to managers in a company, agency or organization.
Managers or other people who hold important positions in the company will usually use information from management accounting findings in making decisions, assisting in management and improving their performance in controlling the company.
In other words, management accounting helps people, especially those who have important positions both in organizations and in companies, to make important decisions regarding the future of the company or organization.
The existence of management accounting is a way for companies to differentiate, examine, describe and also provide data from accountants to their superiors to help achieve the company’s business goals.
The information gathered from these activities covers all areas of accounting with the aim of educating company administration regarding business tasks that identify with the financial expenditures and decisions made by the organization. Accountants use plans to measure a company’s overall operational strategy.
That is the reason why a company really needs accountants who are skilled at carrying out accounting management. It can be said that the fate of this company is quite dependent on the expertise of accountants in carrying out these activities.
An understanding of accounting management itself would certainly be better studied in the Accounting Department. However, if anyone from Mudalovers is interested in learning the basics of management accounting, you can try reading the book “Management Accounting”.
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Tasks in Management Accounting
There is not much that can be explained regarding the meaning of management accounting, considering that the explanation above should be enough to define what accountants do when they carry out management accounting duties.
In fact, what should be explained in more detail to Mudalovers is the activities usually carried out by accountants in management accounting. Because, actually there are a lot of activities they have to do for the company.
This is the reason why accounting is quite a tough job and, as previously said, quite important in a company. This is because their activities or job desks in management accounting are quite numerous and very important for the continuity of the company.
As an illustration in determining how important this work is, we will discuss 5 activities in management accounting that are usually carried out by accountants. After this, you might be able to conclude whether or not an accountant’s job is important in a company.
1. Conduct Cost Analysis
Cost analysis is a systematic approach used to estimate what a company will need in a given period. This can be useful for determining which option provides the best approach to achieving benefits and making savings.
Some of the things analyzed in this assignment include transaction processes, company activities, and business requirements. So, if we draw the general outline, carrying out cost analysis has 2 uses that can be obtained by the company.
The first is to determine whether the decisions, generally in the form of investments, that have been made by the company make sense. Later, they will determine whether the benefits of the investment will be greater than the costs incurred.
Then, secondly, this activity can provide a basic overview for comparing decisions that are usually investment in nature. This method is done by comparing the total expected costs of each option with the total expected benefits.
2. Carry out Strategic Planning
What is meant by strategic planning is the process carried out by an organization or company in determining a strategy for a period and also making decisions in allocating its resources to achieve strategic goals.
This strategic planning can also extend into guiding strategy implementation.
Thus, there are a number of things that are done when an organization or company carries out strategic planning so that they can achieve the desired goals.
Some of these activities include setting strategic goals which are the main goals, determining what actions to achieve these goals, setting a timeline, and mobilizing all available resources so that the goals are achieved.
Implementation of strategic planning includes the process of strategy formulation and strategy implementation. Here, strategic planning itself has an analytical nature, so that the formation of the strategy itself requires an approach that is usually carried out through strategic thinking.
3. Capital Budgeting
In the finance department of a company, capital budgeting can be interpreted as a planning process used to determine whether the company’s long-term investment is commensurate with the funding they have undertaken.
What is meant by investment can be equipment for the company such as new machines, replacement machine spare parts, new company locations, the latest products from, and research development projects which are usually carried out by the research and development department.
With this, they will consider whether the company’s debt, equity or savings can enable them to gain profits and increase the value of the company by investing. It is the process of allocating resources for major capital, or investment, expenditures.
Some companies consider that capital budgeting is not included in the core activities of a business. This is because this activity is not part of the revenue model of most types of companies or some divisions within the company.
4. Annual Budgeting
As the name suggests, this activity is an activity where someone determines the annual budget in a company. However, this budgeting process can be carried out even several times a year depending on company policy.
When planning an annual budget, a company can include things such as sales volume and income, the number of human resources attached to a company, company expenses, company assets and liabilities and company cash flow.
A company’s annual budget can reveal the company’s expenses each year. With this, each company division can provide appropriate proposals regarding how to meet their needs without exceeding the budget that will be spent.
In addition, a company’s budget can also show whether or not there is a surplus in income, so that they provide resources for future use. They can also show a deficit, where spending exceeds income.
5. Estimating Sales and Revenue
Sales forecasting is an activity where financial people use past sales figures to predict the company’s future sales performance in both the short and long term so that they can better plan the company’s finances.
While revenue forecast can be defined as an estimate of future financial results for a company or project. Usually, this activity is applied in capital budgeting and also in assessing company performance in a period.
Even though they have different goals in their work, both sales estimates and income estimates for a company have continuity and are also related to one another so they cannot be separated.
Finance workers in companies need the revenue figures they achieve in a period to be able to determine predictions of sales performance in the company. This income figure can later be used to determine the allocation needed to increase sales.
Apart from the tasks mentioned above, there are a number of other tasks in accounting management. It does require a lot of experience and study time to understand the tasks in this activity.
If you still don’t have experience related to a field, including accounting management, someone can deepen their knowledge in the related field before practicing it directly when they work. When talking about management accounting, this can also be done by reading books, such as the book “Management Accounting, Strategic and Practical” .
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Management Accounting Methods
In carrying out management accounting activities, of course accountants cannot be careless in determining what related variables need to be analyzed and reviewed to determine important information for their superiors in a company.
For this reason, various methods have been created in management accounting so that accountants can determine what can be used as benchmarks in these activities. Please note that like several activities in management accounting that we have studied above, management accounting methods also have several variations.
With this, accountants can determine which management accounting method is suitable for their company. This time, we will discuss the 3 most commonly used management accounting methods. See the explanation below.
1. Grenzplankostenrechnung (GPK)
Grenzplankostenrechnung or more often abbreviated as GPK is a costing methodology originating from Germany. This method was developed in the late 1940s and 1950s and was designed to provide consistent and accurate results regarding how managerial costs are calculated and assigned to products or services.
The aim of the GPK method is to provide information and analysis that is useful, beneficial and of course accurate for accountants and can benefit a number of internal workers such as quality controllers, project managers and factory managers.
The existence of GPK is considered better by a number of companies compared to a number of other traditional costing systems which usually focus more on analyzing company income from an external reporting perspective that is in accordance with financial standards.
2. Cost Accounting
In contrast to the GPK that we previously discussed, cost accounting uses a ratio called “efficiency”. This method compares the labor and materials actually used to produce a product with other similar products under normal conditions.
Unfortunately, because this method was created at the beginning of the 20th century, the cost accounting method is already very outdated and not suitable for the conditions of the modern working environment. Standard cost accounting can harm managers, workers, and companies in several ways.
For example, a policy decision to increase inventory may harm manufacturing managers’ performance evaluations. Increasing inventory requires increasing production, which means that processes must operate at a higher level. When errors occur, the process takes longer and uses more than standard working time.
3. Accounting for Resource Consumption
The final method that will be discussed in this article is resource consumption accounting. This method is considered a relatively new management accounting approach, largely based on the GPK method that we discussed previously.
There are at least three core elements that differentiate this management accounting method from several other methods. These three elements are a resource view, quantity-based modeling and finally, the company’s cost behavior.
The existence of this resource consumption accounting theory is considered to describe a dynamic, integrated and comprehensive management accounting approach and is able to provide decision support information for managers for company optimization.
We discussed earlier that apart from the three methods we have studied above, there are several other methods in management accounting. Each company has their own preferred methodology according to the company’s needs and capabilities.
Studying the management accounting methods used by companies can be a benchmark for determining which methods are suitable for a company. The book “Management Accounting: Implementation in the Indonesian Case” can be a reference for studying various management accounting methods used in several Indonesian companies as well as a reference in case studies.
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Conclusion
With this, the article that discusses everything related to management accounting ends . The hope is that this article can open up Mudalovers‘ insight regarding the world of accounting as a whole, regardless of whether you need the information discussed above or not.
Who knows, here there are some Mudalovers who are actually challenged to enter the world of accounting after seeing this explanation about management accounting. Because as discussed in the first paragraph, the recognition that accountants get for their work is very large.
Mudalovers can look for several examples of salaries from accountants who are experienced in their field. Companies do not hesitate to pay high salaries to these accountants because they have an important role in managing company finances.
For this reason, if there are still people from Mudalovers here who are still hesitant to enter the world of accounting because of the high level of difficulty, you don’t need to worry. As long as you do your work well and correctly, you can get proper recognition.
If Mudalovers needs additional references in the field of accounting, we, Muda Bicara, have a number of articles related to accounting that you can read on the mudabicara.com site to increase your knowledge and insight in this field.