External Controller
A second set of eyes on your financials. We provide oversight, review, and reporting alongside your existing accounting team to catch what gets missed.
What This Is
An external controller reviews and oversees the financial work your in-house team is already doing. That means reviewing journal entries, checking reconciliations, examining reports for accuracy, and making sure your numbers actually reflect what’s happening in the business. It’s not about replacing your bookkeeper or office manager. It’s about adding a layer of professional oversight so mistakes and gaps get caught before they turn into real problems.
Many small and mid-sized businesses have someone handling the books internally but don’t have the budget or need for a full-time controller. The work gets done, but nobody with deep accounting experience is reviewing it. That’s where this role fits in. You get CPA-level oversight on a part-time basis, tailored to what your business actually needs.
What Gets Reviewed
What Gets Reviewed
Bank and credit card reconciliations. Monthly financial statements. Journal entries and account classifications. Accounts payable and receivable aging. Payroll records. Any area where errors tend to hide or where your internal team may not have the technical background to spot issues on their own.
How It Works
How It Works
We work on a regular schedule, typically monthly, reviewing the work your team has completed. We flag errors, suggest corrections, and provide clean financial reports you can trust. We also communicate directly with your internal staff so they learn from the process and improve over time.
Why This Matters
Your bookkeeper or office manager is probably doing a decent job. They enter transactions, pay bills, and pull reports when you ask. But they may not know the difference between capitalizing an expense and writing it off. They may not catch a duplicate vendor payment or notice that a bank reconciliation is off by a few thousand dollars because an adjustment was entered incorrectly. These things add up quietly over months and years.
The bigger risk is making decisions based on financial information that isn’t quite right. You look at a profit and loss statement and think margins are healthy. But expenses are miscategorized, revenue recognition is off, or liabilities aren’t recorded properly. You’re running the business on numbers that look close enough but aren’t accurate enough to guide real decisions about hiring, expansion, or pricing.
No One Checking the Work
No One Checking the Work
In most small businesses, the person doing the bookkeeping is also the only person looking at it. There’s no review process, no second set of eyes. Mistakes go unnoticed because nobody with the right background is looking for them. By the time they surface, often at tax time or during a loan application, the cleanup is expensive and stressful.
Internal Controls Gap
Internal Controls Gap
When one person handles all the financial tasks without oversight, you have a control gap. It’s not about trust. It’s about the fact that every business needs checks and balances built into its financial processes. An external controller provides that structure without the cost of hiring another full-time employee.
What Changes
Your financial statements become something you can actually rely on. When you look at the monthly numbers, you know someone with over 20 years of accounting experience has reviewed them. Errors get caught before they compound. Misclassifications get corrected before they distort your reports. You stop wondering if the numbers are right and start using them to make informed decisions.
Your internal team also gets better over time. When a CPA reviews their work regularly and explains what needs to be corrected and why, they learn. Common mistakes stop repeating. The quality of the day-to-day bookkeeping improves, which means fewer corrections each month and more confidence in the financial picture of your business.
Reliable Financial Reports
Reliable Financial Reports
Monthly reports that have been reviewed and verified by a CPA. You can hand these to your bank, your partners, or your own management team and know they hold up to scrutiny. No more scrambling to clean up numbers when someone outside the business needs to see them.
A Stronger Internal Team
A Stronger Internal Team
Your bookkeeper or office manager gets regular feedback from an experienced accountant. They learn what to watch for, how to classify transactions correctly, and when to flag something they’re unsure about. Over time, your internal processes get tighter and more consistent without having to hire additional staff.
Tampa Bay's Small Business CPA Firm
First Step:
A Short Conversation
Tell us about your business and where you need support. We'll walk through your situation, answer your questions, and give you a clear quote.
