Good Controller/Bad Controller – CFO

Again in 2012, Ben Horowitz published an article titled “Superior Merchandise Manager/ Lousy Merchandise Manager.” We borrowed from his format as we assessed a critical function in a rapid-developing company’s finance business: the controller. (See our preceding column, Superior CFO/Lousy CFO.) Special many thanks to Aman Kothari, Darko Socanski, and the Bessemer Undertaking Companions CFO Advisory Board for their contributions.

Discovering the correct corporate controller for the scale and stage of development for your business is important. If your organization is a small, rapid-developing business, a “big company” controller may perhaps be unable or unwilling to roll up their sleeves to lean in and aid tackle your most essential issues. If your business is additional mature, an superb, fingers-on small organization controller may perhaps have difficulty developing a potent team and considering and acting strategically.

The “goldilocks” controller has the correct mix of skills and pursuits for your latest difficulties with the skill to scale the organization in the short-to-medium term. As an business scales it is not unconventional for the controller to possibly be upgraded or for a main accounting officer to be hired more than them to aid bridge gaps.

No matter if you have to have a additional nimble, fingers-on controller or a major-picture, strategic controller, here are some typical features to take into account in the choice and evaluation procedure.

A fantastic controller can build and direct a potent accounting team. He or she hires the correct people for the function and for the team and organization lifestyle. A negative controller is challenged on this front — he or she mis-hires and winds up carrying out all of the operate them selves, then complains about it to anyone who will pay attention.

A fantastic controller organizes for results. He or she designs their business in a way that optimally supports the business now and that can be flexible to meet altering short-to-medium term desires. A negative controller hires bodies to “get the job done” and does not have time to feel about what comes subsequent.

A fantastic controller makes use of their innate understanding of each individual team member’s aspirations and restrictions to get the best out of them. A negative controller just cannot convey to the variance amongst fantastic expertise and negative expertise. He or she is concerned to up grade the team because of the added operate they’ll have to have to do in the course of the transition time period.

A fantastic controller sets obvious anticipations with the team and follows up. He or she sets plans for them selves and their team concentrated on continuous procedure enhancement. He or she asks heaps of open-finished thoughts and learns from the responses. A negative controller does factors the way the very last controller did them without the need of at any time inquiring why. Lousy controllers have no have to have to question thoughts as they already know all of the responses.

At a smaller organization, a fantastic controller enjoys remaining fingers-on and is satisfied with that as an ongoing portion of their job, comfortably working the two as a preparer and a reviewer. A negative controller in this measurement organization resents acquiring to do the depth operate them selves and does not bother to review the operate of subordinates.

A fantastic controller “owns it.” He or she is keen to do what ever it will take to get the job done and will operate shoulder to shoulder with the team in the course of individuals very long near or pre-audit nights. The negative controller punches out after their 8 several hours irrespective of what is going on in the place of work, leaving the team behind to fend for them selves.

A fantastic controller is brief to distribute the credit score and sluggish to distribute the blame. He or she will take delight in the team’s successes and owns their failures. The very same error does not materialize once more because it turns into a teaching minute and a lesson is figured out. A negative controller will take credit score for others’ successes and blames some others when factors go completely wrong. There is no teaching and the very same errors materialize more than and more than once more.

A fantastic controller is super provider-oriented and guarantees that the finance team delivers superb provider to its clients (the relaxation of the company). A negative controller does not imagine that finance has any clients and ignores the desires of the other departments.

A fantastic controller communicates very well, the two inside of finance and to the broader business, being aware of that he or she is portion of a collective team that only succeeds together. A negative controller is effective in a silo and does not stimulate collaboration.

A fantastic controller understands processes, methods, and their underlying information and will operate carefully with engineering and IT partners to get the best out of their technological know-how instruments. A negative controller does not put into action methods initiatives because he or she just cannot obtain the time. Lousy controllers hold up the migration from QuickBooks because they like the flexibility to be able to go back to edit shut durations.

A fantastic controller makes exact money statements on a predictable timetable and has a program to improve upon their timeliness and comprehensiveness. He or she understands that receiving to a a lot quicker regular monthly near suggests that the team will have additional time each individual month for procedure enhancement, creating the subsequent regular monthly near even greater. In a larger sized non-public organization, the fantastic controller has a program to decrease regular monthly near to a public organization timeframe though also sustaining the sanity of the team. The negative controller makes use of the total month (or additional) to near the publications, leaving no time for procedure enhancement and leaving the team perpetually in a state of exhaustion and strain.

A fantastic controller inherently understands and is fluent in the greater part of the operational and technical accounting ideas pertinent to the business. At a smaller organization, the controller may not have the very same depth of technical accounting knowledge but he or she will continue to be fluent in the critical ideas so as to know when to question added thoughts or flag issues. The negative controller assumes that the auditors will determine out all of the technical accounting issues in the audit so he or she minimizes their hard work expended on investigating them.

A fantastic controller builds a potent and constructive working romantic relationship with the audit spouse and is unafraid to have interaction in truthful and open dialog about important inside issues. Good controllers talk typically and share the typical purpose of “getting factors right” and staying away from surprises. The negative controller dreads each conversation with the audit spouse out of fear that his or her incompetence will be exposed.

A fantastic controller is ethically and morally grounded and is unafraid to problem and have interaction with some others at all stages of the business in discussions about moral issues. A negative controller lives in fear for their job and as a result will conceal from demanding issues.

A fantastic controller initiatives gravitas and can spouse very well with executives and some others across the business. A negative controller is unpleasant when interacting with some others and it reveals.

A fantastic controller seeks out mentorship and guidance and is concentrated on self-enhancement. A negative controller just “does their job” as he or she does not have the bandwidth to do any additional.

Adam Spiegel served as CFO for a sequence of public and non-public superior development technological know-how organizations which includes RPX and Glassdoor. Earlier he expended more than a 10 years as an investment banker for the Credit Suisse Very first Boston Technology Group and Prudential Securities, finishing transactions valued at more than $8 billion. He now mentors CFOs and advises other executives of superior development technological know-how organizations.

Jeff Epstein is an working spouse at Bessemer Undertaking Companions and a lecturer at Stanford College. He specializes in marketplaces and business-to-business software program organizations. He serves on the boards of directors and audit committees of Kaiser Permanente, Twilio, Shutterstock, and numerous non-public organizations.

Bessemer Undertaking Companions, contributor, controller, Glassdoor