Making the Numbers Count: The Management Accountant as Change Agent - Hardcover

Maskell, Brian H.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1563270706 ISBN 13: 9781563270703

Publisher: Productivity Press, 1996

Synopsis

Maskell challenges you to take a fresh look at your accounting systems and then clarifies world class methods required for innovative, proactive management accounting. As we move our analytical skills into new areas of the production organization and abandon many of the traditional methods, there are new techniques we must learn.

The average management accountant is woefully ignorant of the company's processes and procedures. They do not have a clear understanding of the accounting and administration procedures because these tend to be complex and convoluted. As well, very few management accountants have more than a passing knowledge of the manufacturing processes -- not to mention the engineering and technology the product uses.

To be a valuable contributor to your organization, you must be intimately familiar with the company's products, processes, markets, and customers. You must also have a clear understanding of what people in other departments think, feel, and do. These things are not learned in training classes; They are learned by taking the time and effort -- often in your own time -- to get alongside other people in your organization and become a part of the team.

About this title

From the Author

Practical guide to the new role for world class accountants
This short book is a "call to arms" for accountants who recognize that they have more to offer to their organization than just book keeping and variance reports. The book shows how to eliminate the time-wasting and irrelevant tasks that occupy most accountants and free up time for the vital tasks of truly understanding the business processes and, in liaison with operational managers, creating an agile or world class organization.

Synopsis

Strengthen your leadership position by establishing measures that really make a difference. Your key to bottom-line performance is not reading the bottom-line results, but measuring and improving those processes that influence the bottom-line and eliminating those that don't. Brian Maskell's terrific book challenges all managers and management accountants to take a fresh look at the numbers they use to run their companies. This book unmasks the shortcomings of the traditional role of management accountants and shows the inadequacy of running a business based on financial reports. Maskell sets the challenge in the first chapter and exposes the limitations of traditional management accounting in chapter two. In subsequent chapters he clarifies the world class methods required for innovative, proactive management accounting: ABC, VAM, performance, measurement, concurrent engineering, target costing, value engineering, and life-cycle costing.

Edition details

• Publisher: Productivity Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 1563270706
• ISBN 13: 9781563270703
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 344