The Zimbabwe Business Ideas and Network forum is fortunate to have a number of qualified accountants at board level, the secretariat as well as volunteers. Our board of 10 has 3 qualified accountants. Farai, CPA,CGMA; Tavaziva, CA and Victor ACMA,CGMA.
We also tap into a lot of accounting expertise from more than 10 qualified accountants who are volunteers of the forum. Below we share with you information on Global Management Accounting Principles. The information is helpful to accountants particularly those in management accounting or financial analysis. It also helps those that do not have a financial background.
The accounting field is fast changing and it isno longer about preparing historical financial information for reporting. The accounting field is now about value addition to a business and the principles below help in solidifying the place of management accountants on corporate boards.
Quality decision making has never been more important – or more difficult. Innovations and innovators daily disrupt the status quo. The volume and velocity of unstructured data is increasing complexity.
The Global Management Accounting Principles© were created for this era of business. They reflect the perspective of CEOs, CFOs, academics, regulators, government bodies and other professionals in 20 countries across five continents. This included a 90-day public consultation in which more than 400 people participated. Public as well as private sector representation has been included so that the Principles have universal applicability.
The purpose of the Principles
The purpose of the Principles is to improve decision-making in organisations through the provision of high quality management information. They further support you in benchmarking your organisation against best practice.
The four principles are
Influence
Communication provides insight that is influential
OBJECTIVE: Drive better decisions about strategy and its execution at all levels.
This principle is driven by insight, information and integration. Robust, valuable business is built on good decisions. However, a good decision means nothing when it’s made at the wrong time. Given the pace of global business, timely decision-making is more crucial than ever.
By putting communication at the heart of your business, the Global Management Accounting Principles give your business the tools to identify problem areas and cut through siloes. Forging close relationships with key decision-makers enables management accountants to source and analyse the right information, to define a watertight business strategy.
Key benefits
- Clearer strategy: By opening up the right channels of communication, application of this principle empowers decision-makers, by providing them with the heavily scrutinised, evidence-based information they need to steer progressive strategy.
- Tailored communication: Simply put, it’s what people need, when they need it. Defined by transparency and delivered with clarity, this principle helps to achieve long-term impact by providing credible, timely information.
- Better decisions: Understanding the intricacies of the business enables management accounting to make the most well-informed recommendations to key decision-makers, and the robust decisions that follow them.
Relevance
Information is relevant
OBJECTIVE: Help organisations plan for and source the information needed for creating strategy and tactics for execution.
This principle distills data to inform and deliver sustainable business strategy. In the age of data-driven business, it can be difficult to know which information – past, present and future – is relevant to making key decisions.
Having understood the decision-maker’s needs in the communication principle, this principle provides the information needed to fulfill them. How? By identifying, scrutinising and collating diverse data about the business.
To paint a holistic picture, management accounting looks at internal and external, financial and pre-financial information. By looking at past, present and future data, plus mistakes and successes, this principle facilitates the delivery of decision-relevant information only, to drive value.
Key benefits
- Separate good from bad: Bad information leads to bad decisions. By applying this principle, management accounting finds the right information for the decision, and decision-makers, involved.
- Quality meets accuracy: Prior to analysis, management accounting sorts and filters data, so only the most valuable, consistent and accurate information is presented to key decision-makers.
- Information agnostic: With so many factors in driving global business, management accounting recognises that good information, both qualitative and quantitative, can come from anywhere. This principle’s holistic approach means optimised relevance to drive optimised value.
Analyse
Impact on value is analysed
OBJECTIVE: Simulate different scenarios to demonstrate the cause-and-effect relationship between inputs and outcomes.
This principle optimises the link between management accounting and the business model. Without proper attention to this interaction, management accounting’s ability to have any lasting effect on value – and value generation – is severely compromised.
Having sourced and defined the right information for the task and decision at hand, this principle develops scenarios to test that information against. By understanding the business model and wider factors in more depth, management accounting can fully assess the breadth of opportunities, risks, costs, and the potential for generating long-term, robust value for the business.
Key benefits
- Better-informed decisions: By taking a holistic view of the decision-making situation, then rigorously testing diverse factors with scenario analysis, this Principle can assess the relevance and resilience of the business model.
- Prioritised action: Prior to analysis, management accounting sorts and filters data, so only the most valuable, consistent and accurate information is presented to key decision-makers.
Trust
Stewardship builds trust
OBJECTIVE: Actively manage relationships and resources so that the financial and non-financial assets, reputation and value of the organisation are protected.
This principle has empowerment, good values and best practice at its core. An organisation is only as good as its people: without integrity and objectivity in management accounting, the whole decision-making process is undermined, which has negative consequences for the business and its long-term value.
Management accounting professionals champion solid, open working relationships, and applying the principles to their practice areas with competence and clarity. It means they become trusted guardians of an organisation’s value – and values. It also means they’re always ethical, accountable and mindful of these values in every aspect of their practice.
Key benefits
- Accountability meets credibility: Being accountable for decisions minimises the risk of a poor decision, and its potential long-term effects. Creating and maintaining open, two-way communication means stakeholders’ needs are met with credibility, with a positive impact on processes.
- Sustainability: Management accounting makes the link between sustainability, strategy and the business model, taking economic, environmental and social risks into account to drive sustainable, long-term success.
- Integrity meets ethics: Management accounting adheres to its strict code of conduct with commitment, objectivity and integrity, so the decision-making process can be approached critically, and value can be maximised.
