In a typical organization, Controller reports directly to the CEO/President/Owner. And in most companies the IT department reports directly to the Controller. Here is a graphical view of the reporting structure of a company.
What are the principle value add roles Controllers provide to make a difference in their company’s success?
As leader: provide necessary funds to enable company’s stated growth strategies and provide financial backbone to keep track of success.
As strategist: Deploy financial related activities to enhance business performance and delegate critical and tedious finance functions to their team. Essentially have early warning signals to enable changes in direction.
As steward: Maintain continuous vigilance when it comes to risks due to governmental regulations. Increase efficiency by deploying software solutions critical for achieving quarterly/annual goals.
As catalyst: Provide financial perspective on innovation and profitable growth. Enable actionable accurate and timely information for managers and their teams to make effective decisions.
How does selecting the right ERP Software by the Controller move the needle forward to success? Following are 3 successful Controller stories..
1. Sheila Lavin, Controller, Target Enterprises; HQ in Los Angeles, CA, US; Business: Strategic media placement for campaigns and corporations.
Her challenge: Ms. Lavin reports that as their vendor identification system evolved in Microsoft Dynamics SL, the original set-up became disorganized and hard to use: “Over 19 years, a lot more got added in and it was completely out of order. I had to go find the vendor number in order to write a check.”And her answer: “With Acumatica, I can just start typing the name of the company and it fills it in for me. You couldn’t do that in Microsoft Dynamics SL. I spent countless hours looking for vendor ID’s. With Acumatica, I can type the vendor name instead of the vendor ID. I am so happy about that.”
2. Howard Kaufman; Controller; Seaport Capital; NYC; Business: Provides capital to middle-market companies in the communications, media, and information and business services sectors.
One of their challenges: Their biggest headache involved manually managing and allocating money among as many as 40 entities. “We used our management company to pay certain bills and then allocated portions to other entities. With our old system, those allocations were all posted separately,” “I was constantly crosschecking.
And the solution they selected: “The ability to book something once and then have it automatically show up in as many as 40 other places was huge.” And this “Intercompany feature allows us to set up the entire group as one and then create funds as branches.
3. Eric Guadeloupe, Controller; Payza; Montreal, Canada; Business: an e-wallet company.
Their challenge: They wanted to upgrade from QuickBooks, and needed an accounting solution that could meet its multicurrency and multi-company requirements across 197 countries and 22 currencies.
Solution: “Acumatica’s intercompany accounting feature was a winner. Instead of having to post two entries—one for each company—we only have to post one. It simplifies the steps and reduces the risk of error.” And “Acumatica’s support for multiple currencies is fantastic. We can combine the currencies of all our business units for a complete financial picture as well as look at them all separately.”
Why ASC is your partner of choice to deliver exceptional ERP solution for Controller’s.
Please contact Jim Carroll, President Advanced Solutions and Consulting (ASC); jcarroll@solutionsco.com 2017 MVP Award holder for Acumatica leading provider of Cloud Based ERP solutions. He will be glad to recommend and incremental software deployment path for your company to maximize profitability and improve cash flows.