Controllers hold an integral role within the finance function as they raise the level of expertise with their knowledge of accounting and technology, and their financial leadership. While they are often associated with the more immediate financial management and accounting needs of the company, they can influence the company’s growth prospects as well. By helping to make the company more efficient, by helping to clarify how the business is performing, and helping senior leadership to understand all that as well, the decisions the growth-focused company is about to take will be rooted in timely, reliable information.
What Does a Controller Do in a Business?
The best controllers seem to know practically everyone at a company. They want to know the inner workings of the business, and that often requires asking a lot of questions to understand what’s happening, who is responsible, and taking notice. Controllers take a comprehensive, unique view of the business that is rarely replicated by anyone else, besides maybe the CFO. They use a wide lens to understand how the business operates—across every department.
At many companies, the role of the financial controller requires both technical and soft skills, as they deal with many people and are expected to have accounting expertise. They may have been an accountant in a previous life and are now in a leadership position and oversight role as they work on improving efficiencies in the company, while setting up and managing proper finance and accounting systems and processes. At smaller companies, controllers may fill many of the traditional responsibilities of a CFO, until the company is at the point where it needs CFO leadership.
Financial controller roles and responsibilities often include:
- Managing the day-to-day accounting operations
- Ensuring timely and accurate financial information
- Overseeing payroll, accounts payable, and accounts receivable
- Implementing an efficient, reliable monthly accounting close process
- Preparing financial reports for senior leaders, investors, and the board of directors
- Managing members of the finance and accounting team
- Managing the annual audit process
- Establishing, implementing, and monitoring accounting policies
- Building relationships across the company
Ways a Financial Controller Can Help Grow Your Business
Building up a true understanding of the business: By ensuring the company is able to produce and analyze accurate and timely financial statements, the financial controller is in effect ensuring that any decisions made at the highest level are based on facts and not guesswork. The controllers’ monthly financial reports to management can help to explain and bring light to why the company is performing one way and what would need to change to see different results. All of this contributes to informed decision-making.
Freeing up strategically minded executives to focus on the business: When the financial operations are working smoothly and the information coming out of the finance function can be relied upon, with proper controls in place, the CEO can focus on running the business and the CFO can focus on pursuing growth strategies, such as taking the company public or considering an acquisition.
Uncovering inefficiencies: By understanding where the money is going, being tech savvy, noticing waste, and realizing cost efficiencies, the financial controller can help open up resources, time, and room in the budget to enable growth pursuits.
Bridging the gap between the finance function and everyone else: Experienced controllers become bridge builders, by establishing tight relationships and bringing the needs and perspectives of the finance function to others around the company and understanding others’ needs, such as those in HR, IT, and customer service, and that of suppliers, who do their part in helping to keep the company running smoothly.
Reasons to Consider Outsourcing a Controller
When thinking about financial controller roles and responsibilities, and the benefits this role brings to a company, another consideration is that the controller role can often be outsourced. Particularly for smaller and emerging growth companies, an interim controller can do all the duties of a controller for a business yet often at a level of expertise that goes beyond what the company would acquire at this point in its growth stage. On a part-time, interim, or fractional basis, such a financial controller can become a key part of the team and help the business grow, whether you are in between controllers or not yet ready to fill the role at a full-time set of hours. Exploring your options for a controller? See if RoseRyan’s Interim Controller Solutions could be a fit for your company.
