OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the preparedness of the community pharmacists in the State of Penang in six main management functions: Accounting, finance, human resource management, marketing management, planning, and directing. METHODS: A cross-sectional study design was carried out with a total of 100 community pharmacists practicing in the State of Penang, Malaysia. A pre-validated questionnaire, containing 3 sections was used as data collection tool. All data was analyzed using SPSS for Windows version 13.0. Inferential statistics were used whenever appropriate at alpha value of 0.05 or less considered significant. RESULTS: A total of 50 pharmacists successfully responded to the survey. When respondents were asked about the percentage of time spent in actual management functions, 42% of them responded that their time is being spent on actual management functions. More than 60% of community pharmacists said that most of the time, they undertake tasks in accounting, finance, human resource management, marketing management, planning, and directing. When respondents were compared in terms of their demographics, the time overseas graduates showed better preparation and performance of management functions compared to local graduates.  CONCLUSIONS: The findings of this study showed that most of the community pharmacists understand and undertake the management functions in running their community pharmacy business. Furthermore the findings suggested that local pharmacy graduates were less prepared to undertake various management functions compared to their overseas graduated counterparts.