10 Best Management Accounting Books [2025]
Being a manager means you need to possess more knowledge than others, specifically your subordinates. Accounting know-how is equally important for managers, and hence for people there without an accounting background, we have some great books to help you with the subject. Below is the list of such books on management accounting to read in 2025 –
- Management Accounting: Principles & Practice ( Get this book )
- Real Numbers: Management Accounting in a Lean Organization ( Get this book )
- "Best" Management Accounting: Successful Business - Decision Making & Budgeting ( Get this book )
- Advanced Management Accounting ( Get this book )
- Management Accounting (Projects & Budgets) ( Get this book )
- Handbook of Management Accounting Research ( Get this book )
- Introduction to Management Accounting ( Get this book )
- Management Accounting ( Get this book )
- Introduction to Management Accounting ( Get this book )
- Management Accounting ( Get this book )
Let us discuss each of the managerial accounting textbooks in detail along with its key takeaways and reviews.
#1 - Management Accounting: Principles & Practice
by- M.A. Sahaf
Introduction
The author has introduced this management accounting book to make sure that he addresses the varying scope of the subject, along with pioneering the changed curriculum. The author presented the content in a logical and structured manner to make sure that students make the most out of the difficult concepts and techniques of management accountancy.
Book Summary
Mr. Sahaf has included the following topics in the book, the scope and the nature of management accounting principles and processes of accounting, decision making with the help of cost analysis, cost inventory, costing of products, financial statement analysis, ratio analysis, and much more. He has started right from the basic principles of accountancy to reading and understanding the financial statements, which help managers make managerial decisions for the organizations.
Key Takeaways
The entire management accounting book is based on the revised edition of accountancy. The author has introduced and explained the core concepts, an analysis that has helped develop the subject. Hence, it is not only about accountancy's principles, techniques, and procedures.
#2 - Real Numbers
Management Accounting in a Lean Organization
by- Jean E. Cunningham and Orest Fiume
Introduction
This best management accounting book is for managers who need a book to make their numbers real from lean calculations. The author calls his book a guide and an insurgency in controlling finance and administration. Reading and practicing the techniques given in the book by the author will help you change your business and improve it forever.
Book Summary
The authors have all been ex-chief financial executives of their respective organizations. They have focused on how the subject has developed and management can restore simplicity and clarity in business, especially in a lean business. They have described their personal experiences with the Why's and How's of lean accounting in this book. The management accounting model described in this book shows how the true profit potential of an organization can be unlocked.
Key Takeaways
Management accounting models used in real life by the CFE of huge companies and organizations can be very helpful for your understanding of the subject; besides, the authors have disclosed the ways of unlocking profit potential.
#3 - "Best" Management Accounting
Successful Business - Decision Making & Budgeting
by- Deepak Gupta
Introduction
The author made a fresh attempt to present the basics of accountancy in very simple language. He specifies that every definition of accounts concludes that it is a tool that helps management make financial decisions for the organization as the impact affects every aspect.
Book Summary
This top management accounting book will help you make decisions such as pricing, total cost, sales orders, etc. The author's motive is to guide the readers, both graduates, and professionals, about the objectives of cost accounting and how it can help in making management decisions. The author has added the most basic topics to the book for easy understanding. These topics include control of the budget, management decision-making, various costing sections, and its analysis. Of course, the book starts with the basics and explains its concepts.
Key Takeaways
Mr. Gupta has made immense efforts in designing practice questions for the book. These questions are both solved and unsolved and taken from some different professional examinations given in the chapters of this book.
#4 - Advanced Management Accounting
by- Robert Kaplan and Anthony A. Atkinson
Introduction
This book is a perfect coverage of innovative management accounting issues. The authors have focused on very minute points of management accounting and the practice of real-world managerial accounting. He has also used the usage or the application of analytical tools for the extensive coverage in detail.
Before understanding advanced management accounting concepts, one must develop detailed knowledge of the basic concepts. For that, they can take the help of this Basic Accounting Certification Course, which explains accounting fundamentals using real-world examples.
Book Summary
This best management accounting book covers major cost management issues faced by big companies across the globe. The authors have added a flexible approach to advanced management topics through systematic accounts management. The chapters of this book are accompanied by a description of case studies and a description of the concepts used. This team of authors is famous for setting up innovative business standards. This book contains chapters on performance evaluations and incentives in detail using modern approaches.
Key Takeaways
The authors have added a chapter called the transfer pricing. This chapter will take the reader through modern approaches to the subject; it is an addition to (EVA) Economic Value Added. This concept is appropriate for professionals involved in cost accounting and management.
#5 - Management Accounting (Projects & Budgets)
New Manager Series
by- Alasdair Gilchrist
Introduction
Management accounting is a subject that lets you see in the future most of the time, and managers are expected to predict the future. Now how is that possible? It is what this subject is all about. Managers are not only promoted based on their technical competencies, knowledge, discipline, and team management skills. They need to possess much more.
Book Summary
This top management accounting book covers management accounting for new managers. It covers internal accounting processes and methods that help the management handle resources creating value in several forms for value for stockholders and customers. These resources can be both financial and non-financial, in the form of employees or human resources, work processes, raw materials, designs, contractors, vendors, etc..
Key Takeaways
The author has used and explained MAS, a management accounting system that helps the management handle a huge range of data and convert the data into a very important source of information. He says that when data is processed, it is called information. Once consumed, it becomes knowledge and, finally, when understood, becomes wisdom.
#6 - Handbook of Management Accounting Research
by- Christopher S. Chapman, Anthony G. Hopwood, Michael D. Shields
Introduction
Management accounting is nothing but a science of set practices that are very loosely linked. However, they also vary between both time and space. This entire phenomenon makes management accounting very interesting and, at the same time, challenging. Once learned and used, it can help you in making economic decisions, organizing, controlling, and also helps you in planning.
Book Summary
The author has contrasted the facts with the models developed by him. The authors propose that the researchers of management accounting are qualified in a way that they can create a structure of cost management know-how that shows both the display and the working of cost management. They do it so that it shows the stakeholders a way of creating and maintaining long-run profit, creating and building the organization.
Key Takeaways
In this management accounting book, the author develops a model that uses different measures and analysis tools to generate the performance of cost accounting and management. His model correlates to performance evaluation through cost management and strategy development.
#7 - Introduction to Management Accounting
by- Charles T. Horngren, Gary L. Sundem, William O. Stratton, Dave Burgstahler, Jeff O. Schatzberg
Introduction
This best book on management accounting is especially for management professionals who want to understand the subject better and make strong and effective economic decisions for their organizations. This book is very well organized, logical, and easy to understand. The authors have very clearly described theories and common practices that are added to help the readers understand the subject better.
Book Summary
This management accounting book can be your 1st introduction to accounting. This book covers business organizations' business ethics, introduction to budget and preparing a master budget, variance alliances and flexible budget, responsible accounting and management control system, etc. It is extremely easy to read a book where the content is comprehended and illustrated easily with the help of key points.
Key Takeaways
This book is very easy to understand and is organized in a very logical way. It covers not just the required understanding in theory form. It also covers common practices along with living examples of various organizations and their methods of utilization
#8 - Management Accounting
by- Anthony A. Atkinson, Robert S. Kaplan, Ella Mae Matsumura, S. Mark Young
Introduction
To master any subject, you need to understand the same basics. That’s right. You need to get the base right before you want to understand it well. This book helps you understand the basics of accountancy with simplicity and ease. Learning a boring subject can get easy if you have the right guide to help you master its basics and advanced level.
Book Summary
The author shows the treatment of management accounting in a very advanced and detailed manner when the reason for recommending this book is that the author has extended the basic concepts extremely well in this book, along with focusing on the very basic concepts of management accounting. They also show how subject accounting is used and analyzed in actual case studies.
Key Takeaways
This best management accounting book includes new topics in management accounting such as activity-based cost system, targeted costing, JIT, planning of a product, pricing, performance measurement system, budget, etc. This book, in total, is insightful knowledge instead of too much focus on calculations and solving problems.
#9 - Introduction to Management Accounting
by- Charles T. Horngren, Gary L. Sundem, Jeff O. Schatzberg, Dave Burgstahler
Introduction
This subject is an essential tool for a manager as it helps them make effective economic decisions. The authors do not believe in making you memorize the techniques. Their focus is to make you understand the basic concepts of management accounting. They have encouraged the reader to think about the advantages and disadvantages of different techniques and how they can be used.
Book Summary
Managers have to understand how their decision affects the cost of the organization. They have introduced accounting concepts at the very beginning of the book. These concepts are then revised in other chapters in more complex situations, however slowly and gradually as and when the students understand the subject. It is not enough; the authors have also enclosed examples that are live examples of real companies with every concept of understanding.
Key Takeaways
This management accounting book has helped students understand the role or the part of accounting practices in modern business. They have also provided a sneak peek into the operations of major organizations. These chapters, each one of them are ended with the help of a problem illustration and how information available to the public can display the image of the company.
#10 - Management Accounting (For University of Delhi, Sem.5)
by- I.C. Jain
Introduction
This management accounting book is a very student-friendly book and includes and covers the latest management accounting syllabus. The author has used a useful examination approach in creating the book, and hence it can also be used by students who are planning to appear for exams such as CFA, MBA, ICWA CA, CS exams, etc. He helps you create an impact on decision-making in modern business with his book on management accounting.
Book Summary
This top book on management accounting covers an overview of Management Accounting, including objectives, definition, functions, the role of accounting, etc. In addition to this, it also covers budgetary control and budgeting, variance alliances and standard costing, measurement of income, profit analysis, cost and volume performance measurement, etc.
Key Takeaways
This book facilitates a quick revision with the help of key terms, summary, theory questions, objective questions, practice problems, etc. It also includes 125 illustrations, 100 solved problems, 150 exercises that are not solved, and also have answers and hints, and much more. This book is a complete book for this subject.
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