AlanEll

I am a qualified CIMA member with 15 years experience, who intends to emigrate to Australia early 2010.

It has been a long time that I have had a job where I had to use accounting systems on a day to day basis, so feel a bit out of touch. To ensure that I am fully equipped to enter the Australian Jobs market as a management accountant, I want to know more about the financial systems used:-

Can I get advice on
1) most commonly used financial systems within large companies in Oz

2) how can I familairise myself with systems BEFORE I go across

I know that I need to ensure my CV is as robust as possible before I go across, and thanks to advice on previous threads, will obtain my automatic CPA membership before I emigrate.

ozhappy981

I'd say it is no different than the UK: You need to know Oracle and Excel (I am not talking about your garden variety Excel that everyone has on their home computer, but also the "special" business versions that Excel do, e.g. for forecasting.)

If you are from the UK, you should already be familar with these. If not, then you can probably do courses before coming out to Oz.

JOE2010

For the temp assignments I have undertaken in Resources and Oil & Gas, I would say SAP is the most commonly used. Oracle, JDE, Pronto, Ellipse are also commonly used.

Advanced Microsoft Excel - I would say some basic visual basic, macros, capacity to build a financial model and data analysis are valuable.

Having said that, I am only in Perth and not sure whether that is the case over the east.

louH

Yep I'd agree SAP seems very popular. TM1 as a budgeting tool is gaining ground but at the mo still quite "niche" so if you wanted to take a bit of a punt on a wildcard you may wish to think about it. Its used in many government departments, Mac Bank, Qantas, TNT, a couple of the resource comps to name but a few.

Good luck with the move!

Geelong Gent

Given the lack of local knowledge on accounting perhaps take time to ensure your competent skill base is in key accounting areas

Revenue recognition

Accrual accounting From what I have seen cash accounting is still popular (depending on results).

Costing

Internal controls (oh they dont worry about those over here)

SunshineGirl

The local equivalents to Sage, as a medium size accounting packages are QuickBooks and MYOB. Both straightforward to use and very similar to Sage.