cost accounting manager jobs

cost accounting manager jobs

The Role and Responsibilities of Cost Accounting Managers

1. Introduction to Cost Accounting Managers

This chapter examines the role and responsibilities of the cost accounting manager in their position as an upwardly mobile accountant within the organization. Accountants filling this role are tasked with providing the next levels of management with an understanding of the substance of the costs they are being asked to control in multiple areas of the entity. The work they produce is used to assess how well business strategies are being implemented and how they can contribute materially to future success. The universal implementation of productive business strategies involves the use of a number of different management levels. At the lowest levels, the task that is being performed involves the application of the entity’s technology and procedures. The accountants here apply their accounting, auditing, and bookkeeping skills to the finances of specific products. The efforts generated by financial accountants and tax specialists are less unique to the industry and entity under consideration than the cost and management accounting functions. Therefore, those tasks will not be examined in detail.

2. Key Duties and Responsibilities

The accounting manager must have a sound knowledge of the principles involved and the appropriate methods, as well as the basic skills in the various areas of cost accounting. The manager must give expert advice and carry out the work in a way that will ensure plausibility, comparability, and useful information; that will permit the ultimate preparation and presentation of statements and reports, not only to meet the statutory regulations and the management’s requirements for continuity, prudence, cost-effectiveness, and accuracy, but also the interests of various users who need this information for internal and external purposes.

The responsibilities of those involved in cost accounting do not stop at the beginning and end of the fiscal year with the completion of the annual budget or even the management of day-to-day business operations to compare actual results with the budget. They include care for ensuring that the company achieves its overall objectives. Without effective cost-management operation and no regard for budgetary controls, the role of cost accounting would be reduced to diplomacy. The work would bear a remote resemblance to other business planning and implementation responsibilities that concern not only the accounting staff involved in such activities but also the company’s management. Thus, the scope of the responsibilities of the actual posts of the accounting manager and manager of the cost accounting department, for example, presupposes the abilities required for traditionally related accounting positions as well as other attributes.

3. Skills and Qualifications Required

Finally, a cost accounting manager must possess the basic information systems and database skills needed to analyze and interpret data. In-depth knowledge of Excel Spreadsheet and Lotus applications is also valuable. Overall, a college education is minimal, preferably a technical degree with significant coursework in economics, accounting, finance, and cost accounting theory and principles. After five or more years of work experience in a medium to large-sized manufacturing company in a cost manager or cost analyst position, an individual will generally have the experience necessary for a cost accounting manager role, ideally with responsibility for the technical development of less experienced cost professionals.

Effective interpersonal skills are crucial, in particular in working closely with line managers and staff and operations analysis. Capability in reading, drawing, and analyzing diagrams and schematic drawings of electric and mechanical equipment and knowledge of production planning and control methodologies are also very important.

A solid knowledge of cost accounting theory and principles is absolutely essential. Accordingly, it is essential that a cost accounting manager possesses a solid operational knowledge of the latest accounting standards. A good cost accounting manager will also be able to demonstrate good data presentation methods and techniques to meet the needs of the corporate management staff. Mathematical and statistical skills are also important requirements.

4. Career Opportunities and Growth

Growth opportunities for the cost accounting manager Progression for accounting managers can take one of several paths, depending on the values and strengths of the person, the success of the person on lower-level jobs, the skills of the individual, and the training programs that companies sponsor. When intense competition exists for the limited top management positions in finance and management accounting departments, accounting managers should look into obtaining diverse and broad experience on lower assignments within diverse companies. Some may want a broadening of their skills, knowledge, and responsibilities within the finance area but in a non-accounting line, that is, in financial analysis, business planning, or data processing. Many accountants find rewarding careers as dolides on general management tracks within the operating divisions of the business. In recent years, accounting has become a stepping-stone to high-level planning and control positions in the computer industry (architecture, engineering, or systems), in hospital administration or support services, and in all types of manufacturing businesses.

Individuals who wish to advance should make it a point to improve their skills and education through formal training, work experience, and in other ways. Many job opportunities for accounting managers exist because businesses expand, retirements occur, career advancement often increases management/accounting ratios, and companies seem to change personnel frequently. Mergers and acquisitions among companies constantly change the opportunity landscape, often creating headquarters and management-level opportunities. Also, managers can progress in big and small companies and in all industries.

5. Conclusion and Future Outlook

Several functions fall within the functions attributed to manufacturing accountants. Their expertise finds its roots in the handling of their profession but their scope of action also stretches towards that of controller, since they have to assist the operational management in their decision-making and possibly provide optimum solutions in a constant quest for cost performance. The role played by the management accountant will be determined by the formal and informal dimensions ruling within the firm and, moreover, by the way in which these dimensions are appropriated by the cost accounting manager in his relations with the operations managers. The difficulty lies in constantly reconciling the different facets of the answer and adapting the precepts, avoiding an off-putting divestiture of their training. Firms, as a means of communication of management and organizational payment and rights and duties, take into account their professional values and ethical commitments.

During the one hundred years or so of its existence, cost accounting has become a fixture in industrial accounting practice, so much so that the career of family and product cost accounting within the firm hardly receives any further debate. But skepticism can no longer be denied as to the interest taken by management and production accountants in the products manufactured according to the principles defined by cost accounting or in the financial and non-financial information associated with them. The analyses conducted show that such a situation cannot be divorced from the functions and responsibilities of the cost accounting manager. These functions and responsibilities derive from the expectations and institutional pressures but also and especially from the dynamics and different dimensions of the actual roles played by the holders.