controller services arizona

 

Fractional Controller Services

Are you an overwhelmed Chief Financial Officer (CFO)? Maybe you are a solopreneur or small business owner wearing many hats, one of which is managing the financials. In either case, there often comes a time where business owners or managers feel like they are in over their heads when it comes to handling the financial aspects of a company. This is where outsourced controller services come in.

Outsourced controller services can help an organization to take care of their financials. These fractional controllers are usually hired by the organization when the business is expanding, they need help with a specific task, or the staff just doesn’t have the time or expertise to handle the financial matters.

Controller services are responsible for overseeing strategic planning, day-to-day financial operations, complex transactions, and maximizing efficiency across the organization.

What Is the Difference Between Fractional CFO and Fractional Controller Services?

A fractional CFO is mainly responsible for managing the client’s financial actions, including cash flow management, financial planning, and analyzing where a company’s financial strengths and vulnerabilities lie.

A fractional Controller is the head of the client’s accounting department (or is the client’s accounting department), overseeing the preparation and accuracy of balance sheets, income statements, and other financial reports.

Our Fractional Controller Services

Using our fractional controller services allows the client to have its finance and accounting needs appropriately met at a fraction of the cost of employing a full time controller. The fractional controller adopts the identity of the client’s company and can alleviate most, if not all, of the pain associated with having fragmented accountability in the accounting and finance activities.

A fractional controller offers forward-thinking, strategic insights, drawing upon their extensive experience spanning various businesses and industries. They can often bring their own network of experts to support the clients’ plans and needs. With a constantly declining number of traditional controllers available in the marketplace, fractional controllers can be a great way to facilitate your company’s growth in an agile and cost efficient manner.

Accounts Payable (AP) and Accounts Receivable (AR) Processing

We can take care of your accounts receivable/cash receipts and accounts payable /cash disbursements processing. This includes:

  • Receiving and making payments
  • Managing bills and invoices
  • Performing account updates
  • Reporting and other related tasks

Budgeting Help

Leverage our budgeting experts and leave the stress behind knowing that your finances are in good hands. Our staff will analyze your expenses and point out areas where they can improve performance. Master Accounting and Tax Services can help you:

  • Set up smart financial goals
  • Forecast what your financial resources will be
  • Examine your current expenses
  • Provide guidance on adjustments needed to improve your financial outlook

Guidance and Planning

When it comes time to plan and make decisions, having a clear picture of how your business is performing is key. Our team can help guide you in your future planning with:

  • Due diligence for an accurate understanding of the business’s financial situation
  • Fixed asset tracking for better strategic decisions

Analysis & Preparation of Financial Statements

As one of the last steps of the accounting cycle, we will use previous statements to develop a current financial statement. If it is necessary, we can also perform an analysis of your financial statements to file quarterly and/or year-end statements. Statements we prepare include:

  • Income statement to report revenue and expenses
  • Statement of retained earnings (statement of owners’ equity) to show a change in retained earnings from the beginning to the end of a given period
  • Balance sheets listing liabilities, assets, and equity at a specified time
  • Statement of cash flows to show cash inflows and outflows for a specific period

Regulatory and Industry Compliance

Following industry-specific guidelines and adhering to state and local accounting requirements will help your business avoid expensive penalties or other disciplinary actions.

Our compliance experts will evaluate the adequacy, propriety, and reasonableness of your financial policies and procedures to mitigate risk. We can also help with compliance and application of new accounting principles and other fiscal regulations.

Compilation Services

Our team can put together a compilation of schedules and supporting documentation in a financial statement format for auditors, lenders, and tax preparers.

Benefits of Partnering with Us for Your Controller Services

There are some key reasons why businesses look to outsource their controller services to Master Accounting and Tax Service. Here are a few of them.

Hedge Against Turnover Rate

If you are like many business owners, you have probably seen a good amount of turnover with your accounting, controller, or bookkeeping positions. You may even lose your key person who handles all of those things!

It can be expensive and time-consuming to find a replacement to manage your financials, leaving you or your remaining staff scrambling to take care of all of the financial details. When outsourcing your controller duties, you will never again have to worry about putting forth the time and money to hire and train someone new.

Maximize Confidentiality

Oftentimes, small businesses experience an overlap between departments. Maybe you only have one person handling most of your financials. When this happens, you run a higher risk of confidential information making its way into the hands of staff members who should not have access to it. You can avoid this potential issue by partnering with a company like Master Accounting and Tax Service, where your information will always be safe and confidential.

Eliminate Single-Point-of-Failure

A single point of failure happens when the person in charge of a certain responsibility isn’t there or for some other reason doesn’t take care of his or her duties. Obviously, this can be a major problem when it comes to handling financial duties. If your controller or accounting staff takes a vacation, for example, who will handle those duties? Can you ensure that the ball won’t be dropped in their absence? This is where partnering with an outside company can be invaluable.

Save Money

It is expensive to hire a full-time CFO or controller. In fact, small to mid-sized companies can expect to pay somewhere around $75,000 – $300,000 for the position. That is out of budget for many businesses, especially those just getting started. Pay a fraction for the same services by partnering with us.

Controller Services 

Our controller services allow you to shift your focus back to growing your business. Move forward confidently knowing the experts at Master Accounting and Tax Service are at the top of their game when it comes to providing you with affordable and professional controller services. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help make running your business easier.

Fractional Controller FAQs

What Is A Fractional Controller?

It is the responsibility of the fractional controller to ensure the accuracy of financial statements, interpreting the results, and relaying them in a way that everyone can understand.

What Does A Fractional Controller Do?

A fractional controller takes on all the duties of a full-time controller, only them work part time or remotely as needed. The roll of a controller has changed in scope and responsibility in recent years.

What Are A Fractional Controller’s Responsibilities?

  • To ensure the cleanliness and integrity of financial statements.
  • To perform monthly closing of the books.
  • To prepare monthly financial reports.
  • To manage job costing.
  • To maintain a meaningful chart of accounts.
  • To manage and train bookkeepers.
  • To pay sales tax.
  • To assist with audit and tax preparation.
  • To manage accounts receivable and ensure timely collections.
  • To manage accounts payable and approve disbursements.

What Are The Advantages Of Hiring A Fractional Controller?

Startups and small businesses are often experts in what they are selling, but, they rarely have the in-depth knowledge to effectively manage the accounting and finance function efficiently. Often managing the accounting and finances is also the area of least interest to a business owner who would rather spend their time and energy designing and building products or services and engaging with customers.

This is where a fractional controller offers a key advantage. A fractional controller brings in a wide range of finance and accounting knowledge and skills into the client’s company. Having a vast amount of knowledge and experiences, a fractional controller can bring in a wider breadth of knowledge through their experience working with a large range of clientele and industries.

Fractional controllers require little direct management. Managing and training personnel can quickly become convoluted and time consuming. Having an experienced leader that requires less direct management can relieve the management team from these additional responsibilities.

Hiring a fractional controller will lower your operational costs. Typical fractional engagements incur a flat fee or hourly rate without additional compensation like health insurance coverage, PTO, retirement plans, or other benefits employees enjoy. There are also significant payroll tax savings. Fractional controller fees are less than what it would cost to hire employees for full time finance or accounting functions.

The client can easily modify the relationship with the fractional controller based on their needs. With this type of arrangement, the terms of service are more flexible than what a company can expect with an employer- employee relationship. With an employment relationship, reasons for terminating an employee can be subject to legal scrutiny and have adverse consequences of not handled properly. The employee’s wages are also more sensitive to adjustments. However, because typical fractional controller arrangements are open-ended, parties can decide whether to re-engage the relationship or not.

In addition, the cost of services and scope of work can fluctuate. Working with a fractional controller allows for this flexibility to meet the exact needs of the client’s requirements and budget. This is much more difficult with an employment relationship.

Is A Fractional Controller Worth It?

Teaming up with a fractional controller can prove very helpful when making financial decisions, as the controller can provide accurate financial data. This helps the client make well-informed, data-backed decisions.