Future Of Accounting: ACCA And Paper F5

Accounting is often referred to as the “language of business”. It gives a structure of practice, regulation, governance and concepts, like performance measurement, around which corporate entities can build effective and successful operations. However, business now exists in a constantly changing ecology and if accountancy wants to remain the lingua franca of the corporate world, it will need to meet head on the new challenges this presents.

The ACCA, (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) through its “Accountancy Futures” programme is looking to address the issues that are critical to the accounting profession of tomorrow. The programme looks at four principal areas, audit and society, access to finance, carbon accounting and narrative reporting. As regards the latter, it wishes to initiate debate in order to improve the value of narrative reporting for stakeholders, so that they are more reliable, comparable, relevant and useful when making decisions.

The ACCA is the largest and fastest growing worldwide professional body, it was established in 1904 and its primary aim is to provide business relevant, qualifications and professional development. The ACCA President, Brendan Murtagh in the latest Annual Report, opined that “accountants who have the benefit of a sound professional education are central to the development and ongoing success of all economies”. A number of the ideas considered in the “Accountancy Futures” programme are the mainstay of performance management accounting, paper F5 of the body’s primary accounting qualification.

This comprises fourteen areas of study with an exam for each. There are nine papers, classed as “fundamental” and five as “professional”. Through its Syllabus, paper F5 gives finance professionals the capacity to decide whether an organisation is delivering, and more importantly, the tools to change and fix any issues to keep it on track. It deals in considerable deatil with everyday concpets such as specialist management accounting and cost techniques, like target costing, standard costing, decision-making, quantitative and behavioural budgeting, as well as performance measurement and control.

In its article on the connection between corporate social responsibility and cost control the ACCA contends that business reporting is the vital link between sound environmental practice and strong financial performance. Narrative reporting allows businesses to clearly set out and track their social, environmental and sustainability agendas; areas central to the ever changing business scene.Businesses with the human capital qualified to meet these demands will endure and do well and ACCA trained accountants have all these skills in abundance.