How to become a Management Accountant
Completed your AAT? Developed your skills, to the point that you’re looking to push onto the next stage of your Accountancy & Finance career?
Having previously addressed How to kick start your Accountancy & Finance Career, here we look at what it takes to become a fully-qualified Management Accountant.
Am I ready for the next step?
Having gone through your AAT and spent some time in an Accounts / Finance Assistant role, you will hopefully have gained an in-depth understanding of business accounts processes such as Purchase & Sales Ledger, Reconciliations, Payroll etc. Now it is all about beginning to take your skills to the next level and learning how to use this information more strategically.
What Qualifications can I do?
The natural next step is to move into a Assistant Management Accounts role and begin working towards your CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants) or Degree equivalent. Ideally you will want to be combining your work with your studies – applying your studies to everyday situations is massively key for your development. So, securing a role that offers study support will be ideal.
The CIMA will take you through new processes including preparing accounts, analysing business performance & financial forecasting and also will hone your skills in problem-solving and financial analysis. This is something that should not be rushed and typically a CIMA will take around 3-4 years to complete.
What does being a Management Accountant require?
Being a Management Accountant requires more than arithmetic to be a success. It will require you to think outside the box and see the bigger picture. Your analytical skills will be worked into overdrive, identifying key trends and patterns, enabling you to offer insightful forecasting, ultimately influencing key business decisions.
What are the benefits of the Management Accountant career path?
Management Accountant roles can arise in pretty much any business or sector. This opens up your career opportunities, before over time, you develop yourself within a more specialist area.
Being a Management Accountant can be rewarding too, seeing your hard work becoming a key driver in improving and growing a business. A fully-qualified Management Accountant can also earn an annual salary of up to and above £50,000, so it is certainly a lucrative career choice.
Prospect Accountancy are a Recruitment Agency in Banbury. We specialise in Permanent & Temporary, Part & Full-time Accountancy & Finance jobs in Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire & Warwickshire
