Before pursuing a career as a Certified Management Accountant (CMA), it’s important to understand what it takes to be successful in the career. While there’s not one clear answer, there are key CMA skills that you must leverage to grow in the profession.
Summary
Certified Management Accountants (CMAs) are high-level professionals who work closely with upper management to play a key role in major financial decision-making, utilizing a broad skillset that includes financial analysis (such as forecasting, evaluating risks, and capital budgeting), strong cost accounting abilities (like determining cost standards and creating accurate budgets), effective written and verbal communication (to relay findings to both accountants and non-accountants), risk management expertise, and essential management and mentoring skills.
What do CMAs do?
Most CMAs work with upper-level management staff at a firm or company, often playing a key role in major decision-making for the company’s finances. CMA careers include financial analyst, cost accountant, controller, CFO, and others.
What CMA skills do I need?
To succeed in these high-profile roles, you need specific skillsets that make your financial decisions reliable and accurate.
1. Financial analysis
Every organization needs accountants who can perform useful financial analysis and provide unbiased data to make informed business decisions. Especially in the role of cost accountants, financial managers, and other related roles, CMAs need to have strong acumen in analyzing financial documents.
Financial analysis refers to forecasting revenue, expenses, and other outcomes for a business, and comprises a large portion of a CMA’s work. CMAs also perform analysis to determine the rate of return for a particular business decision, and evaluate business risks.
Additionally, CMAs leverage financial tools are used to determine a company’s capital budgeting needs, the financial impact of starting a new product line, or the cost of purchasing a business. Becoming adept in accounting software and being able to interpret financial reports is one of the most important skills needed for accounting at the CMA level, and provides a great deal of value to any company.
2. Cost accounting
Firms need CMAs with strong cost accounting skills to create accurate budgets and provide realistic business forecasts.
Cost accounting includes determining cost standards for material, labor, and overhead costs to create budgets reflective of business activities. CMAs need to use cost accounting skills to accurately analyze production costs and further recommend changes to reduce costs and increase overall efficiency.
The most valuable Certified Management Accountants perform cost accounting analysis in a timely manner and clearly explain the results to all business members, from stakeholders to CFOs.
3. Written and verbal communication
A CMA must possess effective writing and communication skills to relay important findings and financial data to managers and non-accountants. While CMAs perform several tasks that inform financial decisions, the ability to effectively present that information is an equally important part of the role. Much of this communication takes place in the form of written reports but may also occur through presentations to leadership.
All CMAs should be able to summarize financial findings in an understandable, written form and present findings to other company personnel. Additionally, CMAs should be able to convert their results into engaging visual presentations that best tell the business story behind the numbers. Experienced CMAs often take on the role of advisors and business consultants to senior management, and therefore must be able to communicate changes at a high level.
4. Risk management
Many CMAs take on the role of risk managers. Risk management is key in every business, and CMAs performing this function must be able to effectively pinpoint risk issues and consult on solutions for the entire company.
If an organization implements a new set of internal controls, for example, a CMA might perform a risk analysis and explain to employees at every level why the controls are important, how each control works, and how it will affect daily work. The CMA would document each control in a clearly written procedures manual that includes the steps required to complete each routine task the company is performing.
5. Management and mentoring skills
As you gain experience and take on more senior roles, you will likely move into management positions where you’ll oversee teams of other accounting and finance professionals—making leadership a key CMA skill for your career.
As an effective manager, you should set clear expectations for the staff and review work to give feedback in a timely manner. You should also invest time to train employees and serve as a mentor to help staff members advance in their careers.
For example, a CMA in a manager role may have a direct report who is interested in moving from a staff accounting position into a role as a financial analyst. To help grow their career outcomes, the managing CMA would help the more junior employee take on more analysis work, provide regular feedback on this work, guidance for improvement, and eventually provide a referral so that the employee can move into the analysis role full time.
6. Attention to detail and adaptability
CMAs must have the focus required to perform detailed work and the drive needed to meet regulatory deadlines. As a CMA, your job is meticulous; having the CMA skills to identify anomalies in data and pick up on small details is immensely helpful to your daily work.
Moments when it’s essential to be detail-oriented and adaptable as a CMA include:
- Delivering accounting information and answering technical questions regarding the details of reports and financial statements
- Quickly adapting to evolving customer preferences, new competitors, and regulatory changes that affect the industry on a daily basis
- Learning new technology and its applications in the business
How do I gain CMA skills to grow my career?
There are many hard and soft CMA skills needed for professionals at such a high level of certification. And by studying for and passing the CMA Exam, you gain much of the knowledge and skills that will set you up for success as you grow your career.
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