primary ethical responsibilities

Guided Response: Review your peer’s posts. Respond to at least two of your peers outlining the responsibilities that you feel are the most important to management accountants.

a. There are four (4) primary ethical responsibilities of a CMA, confidentiality, avoid conflicts of interest(integrity), credibility(truthfulness), and to comply with the continuing education requirements of 30 hours per year. "The management accountant is a strategic partner utilizing financial information to improve the quality of business decisions."(Rights and Responsibilities of a Certified Management Accountant). Management accountant's responsibilities differ from a financial accountant's responsibilities in that a management accountant has the ability to influence a financial decision of the company. As we learned earlier, a financial accountant primarily prepares documents for review by outside persons and entities such as investors or the I.R.S. Therefore, a management accountant has more influence over management than a financial accountant, and therefore has a higher ethical standard, much like a lawyer has an ethical duty to his clients. An example of such a duty is to disclose any and all conflicts of interest. A management accountant may have a financial interest in a company(stocks). The company he/she works for may be interested in buying that company based on the accountant's analysis. Since the accountant may stand to gain financially from the transaction he/she has a duty to disclose the information. They also have a duty to tell the truth. That duty prevents a management accountant from lying to cover up a mistake he/she may have made or to ensure that management gets truthful and accurate information. Rights and Responsibilities of a Certified Management Accountant.

b. Management accountants are responsible for "contributing to strategic, tactical, and operating decisions and helps coordinate the efforts of the whole organization. As part of management, the CMA utilizes financial expertise and broad business competence to help assure the organization's successful operation in the long, intermediate, and short term." For example, a management accountant is responsible for planning the financial goals of a company. The responsibilities are different from financial accountants. Financial accountants are responsible for the financial records of the company.