Accounting is often presented as a dry, technical subject, so often concerned with precision rather than relevance. However, as it is practised within today's large organizations, accounting is far from dry and technical. Financial calculations are an important ingredient in most organizations' decision-making activities. Finance staff are often intimately involved in the allocation of scarce resources (for example, people and money) among competing projects, operating units and departments. Pressure for performance is a common feature of corporate life, and often this is manifest through accountability for financial results. Indeed, careers are often made, or broken, according to line managers' performance against plans and budgets. In short, accounting is actively involved in the management process. It is not merely technical in this view, or neutral in its effects. Rather it influences, and is influenced by, behaviour in organizations.

Within organizations, management accounting is distinguished from other activities performed by the finance function. Planning is a central component of management accounting, which seeks to achieve greater co-ordination and control within organizations. How it does so will differ given the technical systems employed, and in particular the nature of the organization. Different contexts give rise to different organizational arrangements, and consequently to different planning and control systems. Firms using functional, divisional or matrix structures, for example, will have quite different planning and control aims and requirements. There are also international differences in organization and control; these differences are not as yet fully understood, but evidence suggests that practices around the world vary considerably. There are noticeable differences between US, Japanese and European styles of control and, within Europe, between Germany, France and the UK

At present, accounting and control systems face several challenges. For example, traditional hierarchical control systems do not fit easily with the modern 'delayered', 'empowered', 'process-oriented' organization. There are also questions as to how short-term financial controls can be consistent with the quest for strategic positioning and the creation of core competencies.