Concepts of management accounting in the context of its definition and relation to the accounting essence

Subject. This article examines the present-day essential content of the category promoted by foreign professional associations, and assesses its compliance with the functionality used in the Russian Federation. Objectives. The article aims to find and describe the essential content of what is called Management Accounting in Russia and abroad due to the lack of a clear institutional scientific justification. Methods. For the study, we used general scientific methods of cognition, namely induction and deduction, analysis and synthesis, modeling, comparison, extrapolation, as well as the comprehensive, and functional-and-targeted approaches. Results. The article identifies and describes significant problems that underlie the versatility of the semantic content of the term Management Accounting. Conclusions and Relevance. The Global Principles of Management Accounting is a framework document that defines the principles of management based on accounting and analytical data, but not management accounting in the sense of collecting information and recording and summarizing it. It would be logical to break down the categories into accounting for management, that is management accounting, and management based on accounting data, that is analytical (accounting) management. Language (term translation) inconsistencies can also be considered a negative impact on the understanding of foreign documents. The results of the study of the subject and functional area of management accounting, presented in the article, are useful for continuing the discussion and understanding the semantic content of individual accounting categories.