The future of management accounting and the CPA

The future of management accounting is about to get brighter. The AICPA and CIMA, two global accountancy organizations are about to approve an exciting joint venture to increase management accounting and the CPA's global relevance.

I am voting “yes” to the AICPA / CIMA Joint Venture and want to encourage you to consider doing so as well, for four reasons:

• Accounting’s global relevance.
• Strength in numbers.
• The move to a CPA-led profession.
• The transition to the “Fourth Industrial Revolution".

I have been a management accountant (and CPA) my entire career, first as a staff accountant in industry, assistant controller, then as a CFO. Now I am the CEO of a “for purpose” (otherwise known as a non-profit) organization, and I still use my CPA and management accounting skills. My career reflects many studies that show the average business and industry CPA spends less than 20 percent of his or her time on traditional accounting and financial reporting topics. The rest is spent on strategy, IT, HR, forecasting, business model innovation, performance management, and other critical areas of the business. This is why the CGMA designation is so important as these roles become more important and more strategic and the body of knowledge continues to grow.

The AICPA / CIMA Joint Venture brings together two global leaders in accountancy with more than 100 years of history and leverages the strengths and resources of both for our collective benefit. Combining the memberships via this Joint Venture gives us an immediate global footprint and increases our numbers to magnify our voices on the global and U.S. regulatory and standards arenas. In the United States, CPAs continue to lead this new area and recognize the value of non-CPA CGMAs working with us in many of our organizations.

Our profession was founded during the transition from the agricultural age to the industrial age, when new forms of business were being created -- businesses that required capital and scale and new ways of accounting. Cost and management accountants were the pioneers of this new age of accounting. In Maryland, our CPA law was passed by what were then management accountants who worked in breweries, railroads, and other new industries.

As we enter what the World Economic Forum calls the Fourth Industrial Revolution, characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres, we will need a new breed of management accountants with new skills. This is best described in a CGMA whitepaper titled Rebooting Business: Valuing the Human Dimension:

“They (CGMAs) connect the dots because they understand how the different parts of the business need to come together to create value. They also bring the independence and objectivity which comes from being bound by a code of ethics, and the professional requirement to continuously update their skills, emphasises both the technical as well as the management skills we noted above, such as communication and leadership.”

I believe the Joint Venture and the CGMA designation will be critical for our continued relevance in a global world.

I’d like to close with a quote from our friend and global futurist, Daniel Burrus: “If it can be done, it will be done, and if you don’t do it, someone else will.”

As our next-generation leaders, will you help us usher in this new age of accountancy?

Voting for AICPA members ends 5pm on June 16th. Click here for voting instructions.