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How to Become a Certified Management Accountant (CMA)
You can pursue an advanced specialization in management accounting after earning a bachelor's degree and gaining the requisite experience.
Become a leader and difference-maker in the field of accounting as a Certified Management Accountant
A Certified Management Accountant (CMA) professional focuses on financial, asset or performance management and is responsible for making financial decisions for a company. They specialize in analyzing a company’s financial strategy and managing corporate finances. Their role is strategic, focusing on forecasting the future health and growth of a company.
CMAs are experts at explaining the “why” behind the numbers, translating complex financial data into actionable insights for management. To become a CMA, you must meet high education, experience, and exam requirements. Ready to start? Here is what you need to know to prepare for a career as a CMA.
Job Duties
Basic duties and responsibilities of a CMA
CMAs are internally-focused, helping companies drive performance and long-term success. They are different from Certified Public Accountants (CPA), who focus on external financial reporting and compliance. Some CMA titles include accounting manager, financial analyst, corporate controller, and Chief Financial Officer (CFO).
Core CMA duties and responsibilities include:
- Planning, budgeting, and forecasting: Creating comprehensive annual budgets, developing long-range financial forecasts, maintaining the company’s balance sheet and income statements, and continuously monitoring performance against projections.
- Strategic decision support: Providing financial recommendations to senior management on critical business issues, such as mergers, acquisitions, pricing models, and capital investment decisions.
- Performance management: Designing and implementing performance measurement systems, conducting variance analysis, and evaluating the efficiency and effectiveness of business segments.
- Funding support: Helping a corporation or individual organize funding and various options for financing.
- Risk management: Identifying, assessing, and creating strategies to mitigate financial risks that could threaten the organization’s assets or earnings capacity.
- Internal controls: Ensuring internal financial processes and controls are robust and compliant to safeguard company resources and prevent fraud.
Special emphasis on taxation in management accounting for CMAs
Unlike a certified public accountant, who emphasizes tax compliance and filing, a certified management accountant focuses on taxation primarily for its effect on internal strategy and financial decisions. That’s why relevant courses, such as Corporate and Partnership Taxation, are crucial.
A CMA's strong knowledge of tax legislation is essential because they must understand how taxation influences:
- Investment decisions: Analyzing how tax laws (e.g., depreciation rules and tax credits) affect the profitability of long-term capital investments.
- Corporate structure: Determining how organizational choices (e.g., partnerships vs. corporations) impact internal financial reporting and cash flow planning.
- Financial reporting: Accurately recognizing, measuring, and reporting income taxes in financial statements for internal and external use, especially under the US GAAP and IFRS standards.
This expertise allows the CMA to create fiscally sound budgets, help direct company worth, and offer strategic recommendations concerning a company's structure and operations.
Skills
Essential knowledge and skills
To become a successful CMA, you’ll need a blend of financial knowledge, strategic and critical thinking, and strong communication skills. Additional CMA skills include:
- Strong financial analysis and reporting: CMAs must analyze complex financial data, interpret results, and create clear, detailed reports that can be understood by different audiences.
- Strategic management: As a CMA, you may integrate financial plans with long-term business goals, which requires expertise in corporate finance, decision analysis, and capital investment.
- Software proficiency: Today, CMAs use a variety of accounting software—such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and data analytics tools—to leverage financial modeling and predictive analysis.
- Problem-solving: Using analytical skills to identify issues and develop solutions.
- Attention to detail: Ensuring accuracy in financial analysis and reporting and focusing on specific details.
In addition to these strategic skills, it’s important for CMAs to possess soft skills, such as communication
What is the difference between CMAs and other types of accountants?
- Certified Public Accountant (CPA): A CPA focuses on public accounting roles like auditing, tax, and external reporting, and may provide services to many companies or individuals. They may work for an organization or have their own private practice. To earn the CPA credential, you must take and pass four exams.
- Auditor: Auditors focus on verification and compliance. They examine financial records, such as payroll, to ensure accuracy and compliance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and relevant tax laws.
- Tax examiner: This type of accountant reviews tax returns for federal, state, and local governments to determine tax owed and resolve errors.
- Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA): These are accounting professionals who specialize in financial analysis and strategic decision-making. As a requirement to become a CGMA, you must take and pass the CGMA exam offered by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA).
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Earning CMA certification
To become a certified management accountant, candidates must fulfill four primary requirements set by the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA):
- IMA Membership: Candidates must be active members of the Institute of Management Accountants.
- Education: Hold a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university.
- Experience: Possess two continuous years of professional experience in management accounting and/or financial management. This experience must be completed within seven years of passing the exam.
- Examination: Successfully pass the two-part CMA exam. When this is complete, you will be granted your CMA certificate.
Taking the CMA exam
The CMA is a two-part, four-hour test covering financial planning, performance, analytics, and strategic financial management. It is a challenging exam, testing a candidate’s mastery of the CMA body of knowledge. The two parts of the exam can be taken on separate dates:
- Part 1: Financial Planning, Performance, and Analytics. In this part of the exam, questions focus on cost accounting, financial statement preparation, internal controls, and technology.
- Part 2: Strategic Financial Management. In this part of the exam, questions focus on corporate finance, risk management, decision analysis, and professional ethics.
To obtain your CMA, you must meet all prerequisites, pay exam fees, and complete the registration form. Because it is a challenging exam, it requires extra study. Candidates often register for in-person or online prep classes or training programs to review sample questions.
Candidates must pass both parts of the exam within three years of entering the program to officially earn the CMA designation.
Job Outlook
CMA work environment, job outlook and pay
Certified management accountants work in a variety of organizations across all industries. They may work in large accounting firms or corporations, government offices, and nonprofits. CMAs can be found in all business sectors, including financial services, manufacturing, healthcare, technology and even education.
CMAs work can be steady year-round, but their busy seasons are often January through April (“tax season”) and the end of the calendar year, when many companies are preparing for the new year. However, because a company’s fiscal years may not start and end with the calendar year, CMAs may be busy during various months.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, accountants and auditors earn an average annual salary of $93,520 per year ($44.96 per hour).* However, given their certification, CMAs are often able to earn more than non-certified accountants. They may also have higher earning potential based on where they work and their level of experience.
In terms of employment projections, the BLS expects jobs to grow 5% from 2024-2034, faster than the average across all U.S. occupations.*
Start the path to your career as a CMA today
Ready to transition from simply recording financial history to actively shaping the financial future of an organization?
It all starts with your education. If you have yet to earn a bachelor’s degree, consider our Bachelor of Science in Accounting program. The curriculum includes coursework helping develop important skills for CMAs, as well as emphasis on the emerging technologies bringing sweeping changes into the field. You can graduate from our program ready to succeed in a rapidly evolving industry.
Learn more about our Bachelor of Science in Accounting program
BLS pay estimates calculate the median annual wage for various occupations. Per the BLS the median wage for an occupation is: "The wage at which half of the workers in the occupation earned more than that amount, and half earned less. Median wage data are from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey." Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook 2024. BLS median wage estimates do not represent entry-level wages and/or salaries. Multiple factors, including prior experience, age, geographic market in which you want to work, and degree level and field, will affect career outcomes, including starting salary and earnings as an experienced employee. Herzing neither represents that its graduates will earn the median salaries calculated by BLS for a particular job nor guarantees that graduation from its program will result in a job, promotion, particular wage or salary, or other career growth.