Taloushallintoala muuttuu ja sen mukaan myös alalla toimivat yritykset ovat pakotettu muutokseen sekä tarjoamiensa palveluiden että myös oman työympäristönsä osalta. Tässä Management Accounting opintojakon esseessäni olen käynyt läpi taloushallinnon asiantuntijan roolin muutoksen ja toimintaympäristön muutoksen tarpeen teoreettisen materiaalin tuella.
The business world is changing inevitably due to globalization, digitalization, geopolitical and social revolutions, and changes in customer behaviour (Dufva 2023). Changes in global competition and product lifecycle shortening promoted the need for early identification of changes and quick response in terms of adjusting business to follow global trends. The business environment started to require more data to keep up with all those changes, and digitalization and technology development made this possible (Drury & Tayles 2025, 11-15). This phenomenon, once started as a tool to make manufacturing processes more efficient, has now spread all over the business world, including service-providing companies.
Accounting was and will always be a numeric outcome of any business due to its definition as “a collection of systems and processes used to record, report, and interpret business transactions”. However, it is not enough to just see numeric data and base decisions on it. In terms of producing quality decisions, managers need a full picture of the global market and the company’s stakeholders and an understanding of their role in the company’s success. (Collier 2012, 3-4)
Although digitalization and AI technology enable the collection and analysis of data in seconds, the main point is not the quantity of data but the quality of it. Questions like how to define the relevance of data that enables the right strategic decisions in order to achieve business success, or how to oversee all factors that affect the business, have become a necessity for modern managers. (Drury & Tayles 2025,14-15) The management accounting steps out to solve those problems by combining and coordinating accounting and strategic planning.
Management Accounting, on contrary to Financial Management, which is strictly regulated by laws and regulations, oversees the past and creates numeric reports for outside users, such as authorities, government and investors, is long-term oriented, and covers much more data than financial reporting produces for internal use (Miller-Nobbles & Mattison 2022, 20.) Functions of management accounting include more detailed analysis of costs, finding and providing relevant information between different divisions, and supporting strategic decision-makers (Drury 2015, 16). In terms of being an informative provider, already in 1997, Granlund & Lukka (LTA 3-97, 213-255.) in their research paper pointed out the importance of social intercourse in management accounting-related positions, as it is an issue especially in Finland due to specific cultural aspects and mental characteristics of Nordic nations, such as lack of expression and silent corporate cultures.
Management Accounting has several roles in a corporate environment, but they can be seen only as an overlap of each other, as one cannot survive without the other. This overlapping is shown by Paul Collier (2012, 8-10) and highlights that the role of management accounting has been increasing since the first trace of it led to the Industrial Revolution, and the need for accounting and cost accounting increased with the rising number of multinational and multidivisional corporations.
According to a publication on the Belgium recruitment company Robert Walters’ website (2023), the number of controller vacancies increased by 54% in one year. Christophe Paquay, a manager at Robert Walters, explains this as a direct result of the post-COVID pandemic, when organizations realized that it is not enough to have just financial figures on the table while making operational or strategic decisions. In the same article, Christophe pointed out that the borderline between financial and business control is vanishing, as financial controllers need an understanding of the full picture in terms of risk factor elimination.
Planning and Budgeting
“Well begun is half done”, they say. Financial planning is as important as any other. Financial planning in business, and non-profitable activities as well, is represented by budgeting, which is a plan that sets all business activities that are supposed to help in achieving strategic goals (Miller-Nobbles & Mattison, 2022, 349.) In management accounting, two core systems: budgeting and long-term planning, together with responsibility accounting, which relate to the creation and monitoring a responsibility centres, like cost or expense, revenue, profit, or investment centres, implement budgeting in practice (Drury 2025, 245, 247.)
Let’s not forget about sustainability. According to Alan Gutterman (2021, 41-47) already by the year 2021, organizations that are “proactively engaged in sustainability and CSR” have a competitive advantage in the current market streams and green future-oriented predicted development directions compared to passive organizations. Strategic planning includes sustainability goals as much as financial targets, which is what we see, for example, in the Annual reports of global corporations for several years (UPM 2025.) But not only do globally operating organizations find themselves obligated (not by law, but by customer demand) to include CSR reporting in their financial period reports.
Even an accurately prepared budget is not necessarily the outcome of real business activities, as budgeted figures are predicted ones, which leave room for deviations and influences of unforeseen risk factors. Predictability of customer behaviour in unpredictable situations such as financial crises or war is almost impossible, but still necessary in terms of surviving (Schwarz 2024, 1-17). Whatever method of budgeting is used, traditional, based on the his-torical data, activity-based, zero-based etc, a budget is only relevant when it provides the relevant data, as it is a time-consuming procedure, in terms of sustainability it is even more complicated and time-consuming (Gutterman 2021, 41), and if the information can’t be used to monitor the business and find the issues and improve performance, then it is a wasting of resources (Drury 2025, Chapter 10.)
Costing and Control
Cost accounting, as a part of management accounting, includes using different methods of allocating production overheads to the production unit. This unit may also be a service unit – an hour of working time for an expert, for example. Whatever units a company sells, the different types of costs involved in producing or providing them to the customer. And if in a case with direct costs, such as immediately used in the production of raw materials or ener-gy, we can calculate directly how much costs are needed to produce one unit, but in the case with indirect costs or overheads, it is much more complicated process, required differ-ent approaches in allocation overheads, for example by allocation costs of activities per cost unit, like in the case of the ABC-method, which in difference to traditional methods, which identify relevant costs based on production volume, leans on the identifying of cost drivers or activities. (Drury 2015, 25; Gowthorpe 2008, 69, 107).
As important as costing itself is, it requires control beside it to prove the decisions made are correct. Management control systems work alongside accounting control systems in order to provide a full scale of relevant information, not just focused on one part of accounting (Drury 2025, 236-237.) Performance measurements help with that, and it becomes essential for organizations to define the relevant measurements in terms of their business. As Miller-Nobles & Mattison (2022, 498) underline, the financial measurements that are oriented to the past have their limitations; organizations need to monitor different measurements (KPIs) that overlook operational processes from different perspectives, benchmark, and measure customer and marketing behavior as well.
However, implementing the cost monitoring is very time-consuming and resource-intensive. The need for such a procedure has to be defined accurately, and resources applied effectively in order to have a relevant result. Especially, historical data-based decisions are not necessarily relevant in terms of global trends or cultural aspects. (Collier 2012, 13-15; Wallstreetmojo 2025)
Decision Making and Analysis
Management accounting uses several systems and methods, such as value and culture orient-ed (belief systems), limitations and constraints oriented (boundary systems), focused on monitoring performance (diagnostic systems), and focusing on attention (interactive sys-tems), which all geared to improve gathering feedback information on actions taken to pro-duce or sell unit of goods or services (Drury 2025, 237-239.) To enable good quality data-driven decision-making making the gathered data needs to be analyzed. A performance evaluation system with a centralized scoreboard of KPIs and statistical measurements is essential for top managers to oversee the performance of the whole organization (Miller-Nobles & Mattison 2022, 497-500.)
Although some studies show that people perform better when they have a clear goal, setting performance targets may be harmful for the organization as the motivation goes in the wrong direction, and performance is not what a company wants to achieve – raising such a phenomenon as a lack of goal congruence (Drury 2025, 253-257.) Encouraging and reward systems do not always have a positive effect on performance, as they might have the oppo-site effect on the business, when target achievements are prioritized before the quality of the service or understanding of the whole picture, for example, in cases with decentralized companies, where operations split into different segment (Miller-Nobles & Mattison 2022, 492-493.)
Accounting services as a type of business have been enhanced by the creation of the internet and later the digitalization of financial transactions and operations. The revolution began at the start of the 21st century and created a new niche for outsourced services instead of having an accountant in the organization. In the majority of SME businesses that found this as a more cost-efficient solution, outsourced services became an inevitable addition to the business world. (Global PRO 2023)
According to the Finnish Association Taloushallintoliitto, there are over 6.200 accounting companies operating in 2024. The volume of the industry is growing year by year, and for example, grew 3% in 2024 again compared to the previous year. The value of the industry as measured in 2023 was 1,4 billion euros, and the 2024 figures show a growth of 3,6% (Seppä 2025.) Accounting businesses are starting to interest investors, and already we can see some vibes of globalization, while big chains have been born, and they grow artificially through mergers and acquisitions (Lattu 2018.). The number of international operators on the market is increasing steadily.
Digitalization of accounting and the accountant’s role are changing
Although digitalization is a global trend, it has conquered accounting as well. All rou-tine parts of the accounting process, such as sales and purchases, accounts payable and ac-counts receivable, inventory, cash management, and reconciliation, have been digitized at some point by today, and in addition to that, some of those processes are using applications with AI to minimize human’s resources using in those (Ng & Alarcon 2021, part II-1).
This, however, does not mean that the need for accountants as a profession has vanished, but the most time-consuming operations are now made by applications which only need supervising, analysing, and decision making instead of manual bookings and entries. Accountants are now expected to understand the importance of keeping up with technological developments and being able to maintain and develop the systems they use (Ng & Alarcon 2021, part I-4). Nordic countries and especially Finland have been pioneers in accounting transactions digitalization already in 2017 (Figure 2), and the trend of decrease in manual work has continued between 2017 and 2025. All good, you say, technology is our future, and everyone is fine with that. But it is not the case. The situation with resources is critical at this breaking point of the industry. According to Kari Alhola (2023), accounting services require improving the current resources’ technical and customer-oriented skills. Accountants, to stay competitive in the market, must adapt quickly to technological developments, and accounting agencies must follow the requirements in order to maintain and increase their customer base.
Opportunities and challenges of the accounting business
AI creates a lot of opportunities for the accounting business. Simplifying the routine operations increases the profit margins of the business. Automation and AI minimize the human factor in terms of mistakes. The competitive advantage of the business is the rise of the role of value-added services, such as controllers and accounting managers. Still, this step requires excellent knowledge of accounting and management tools.
Accounting businesses may seem flawless and issue-free, as the whole industry is legislated and regulated by several laws and monitoring authorities, however, the main issue may be behavioural and ethical ones. Accountants may start to bend the borders, and this may create a basis for frauds and even enhance criminal activities (Gowthorpe 2008, 275-277).
In addition to the fact that the whole industry is facing the issue of the whole-time: deficit of skilled professionals due to the rapid aging of the population and the non-popularity of the profession in the eyes of the younger generation. The finance-related professions are maintaining a reputation for high pressure and a lot of responsibility with relatively low rewards, especially at the accounting agency levels.
Accounting service changes into a management accounting direction
Inevitable automation of accounting processes forces accounting professionals to move forward in order to stay in the business and be a comparative asset for the employers. AI is not responsible for the decisions it makes, so there will always be a need for an accountable human being behind the reporting. SME businesses start to realize the importance of analysis of the past and predictability of the future, which creates the need for accountants who embody a controller or CFO characteristics in addition to basic accounting skills.
The number of value-added services in the accounting industry is already showing up. By googling “taloushallintopalvelut” (CFO), you may find that the first three pages of results of the search in Finland are accounting companies providing outsourced CFO services. This is a first step to the management accounting services, as the likelihood of customer requirements developing into more informative accounting services is very high.
Business Control in the accounting company itself
Like any business that produces something to sell with the aim of getting a profit, accounting companies should also monitor their profitability and assets using efficiency. This is more and more emphasized by changes in the industry and HR market. Resources needed to produce the service at the required level are expensive, but the outcome of each individual can not be measured by standard measurements. To help measure performance, just numeric targets and reward programs are not enough. As customer relations involves more and more in accountants’ daily routines, customer satisfaction is an important measurement to keep an eye on. In addition to that, the well-being of the main assets of the accounting company – accounting specialists – is another measurement to follow.
As to the ABC-method, this might have a future in the monitoring of accounting business, but I can not see it implemented in small companies right now, due to its resource-intensive and time-consuming nature. However, defining the activities of accounting services that influence profitability may be the right step, even in a small business, to understand the whole picture of the service. The complexity of the service is shown in Figure 3. And there are more activities to define if needed.
However, the management accounting role in service-producing companies will be increasing. According to Evianti, Rachman, Imaningati & Yusuf’s (2024) paper, as service companies are forced to respond quickly and effectively to changes in the market and in terms of their profitability challenges, implementing the ABC methodology is a critical step in management accounting in terms of delivering the relevant information to decision-makers.
In conclusion, we can point out that the modern accounting business in Finland is undergoing a significant transformation, driven by digitalization, globalization, and evolving business demands. Management accounting is emerging as a critical component of this change, transcending traditional financial reporting to provide strategic insights and support decision-making. The automation of routine accounting tasks, facilitated by AI and advanced software, is freeing accountants to focus on value-added services, such as financial analysis, strategic planning, and performance management.
The Finnish accounting industry, though, is experiencing growth, faces challenges such as a skills shortage and the need to adapt to rapid technological advancements. However, these challenges also present opportunities for innovation and the development of new service offerings. The increasing demand for outsourced CFO services and the shift towards more advisory roles underscore the growing importance of management accounting expertise. Management accounting as a part of a successful services-delivering business will be growing.
In the case of an accounting business, management accounting principles must be applied internally to ensure its own profitability and efficiency. While the ABC-method presents a valuable framework for understanding service costs, its full implementation may be resource-intensive, particularly for smaller firms. Nonetheless, the complexity of accounting services necessitates defining key service activities even though. And finally, internal business control, driven by relevant data and informed analysis, is essential for accounting companies to survive in a dynamic market.
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