Bookkeeper, controller, CFO: what each one does and which one you're missing
By Chris Greco, Founder and President.
Bookkeeping tells you what happened. Controllership makes sure it happened correctly. CFO work decides what should happen next. Most companies between $2M and $50M have the first, are missing the second, and are asking the owner to do the third at night.
The tell is a balance sheet nobody reviews. The bookkeeper posts, the CPA adjusts in March, and in between, loan balances drift, payroll liabilities go unreconciled and "ask my accountant" grows. Without a controller, the CFO work is built on numbers nobody has checked.
Sized to the company, all three can be one team. The books get closed and reviewed by the 15th; the forecast and the scorecard are built on those numbers; the owner gets a monthly review with someone who knows both.
Chris Greco
Founder and President, CFO Anywhere. CFO for owner-led companies since 2002. Executive MBA, Gies College of Business, University of Illinois.
About Chris →More from Chris
Running the business · 4 min read
What we usually see when a company opens its second locationWhen a company opens its second location, overhead doubles before revenue does, and the P&L cannot say which location is carrying the other. The company is profitable in total and losing money in one place.
Banking and lending · 5 min read
What a buyer will find in your books, and what to fix firstA buyer will find three things in your books before they find anything else: add-backs tangled into the P&L, a working-capital level nobody has measured, and receivables or inventory they will discount. Fix them in that order; each one moves the price.
Cash flow · 2 min read
A forecast isn't useful because it's accurateA forecast is not useful because it is accurate. It is useful because management knows what would make it wrong, and has already decided what to do when it is.