Let’s start by saying we are not talking about a CPA in this article, just your onsite accounting department. The person(s) completing the bank reconciles, accounts receivable, accounts payables, financial reports, and any other “fun” accounting day-to-day items.

Strong bank reconciliations: If you want accurate financial reports you need your accounts reconciled monthly. If this is not done correctly, then let’s just say you can have garbage on your books that does not give an accurate picture of your company’s financial status.

Accounts Payables: This is a simple one, have someone who is organized and has strong accounts payable experience to ensure your bills are paid on time. Taking care of your vendors represents your company well. The last thing a company wants is vendors grumbling about your business because of tardy payments.

Accounts Receivable: Get those invoices out ON TIME to your clients, when your invoicing is done accurately it helps to streamline customer payment and strengthen your cash flow. Mistakes on invoices will hold up payments and can cause an entire series of issues when cash flow is limited for your company. Have an accountant with strong AR.

Payroll: Normally someone in the accounting department prepares payroll. This person needs to have strong organizational experience. Planning payroll timely every month keeps the employees satisfied and things running smoothly. Let’s look at this from a different perspective have you seen a company that is not consistent in running payroll in a timely fashion, trust us you do not want that.

Financial Reports: When it comes to seeing the health of your company, you need accurate financial reports. A staff accountant who reconciles your books properly keeps the AR and AP current and adds payroll accurately into the accounting software will result in correct financial statements. If you are in the process of purchasing equipment, doing an acquisition, looking to get a company loan or selling your business the financial reports are critical. If your financial reports are not clean, it can bring progress to a grinding halt. A good day to day accountant should be reading financial reports and watching to ensure throughout the year they are kept clean.

If you are looking for a quality accounting team with a wide range of industry experience, feel free to give the pros at PAS Consulting a call for a free initial consultation at (210) 395-4387 or fill out our form to request a consultation.

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Bookkeepers

Bookkeeping involves the daily recording of every transaction and expense, and the incoming revenue the business generates. Maintaining the general ledger of income and expenses is the largest part of a bookkeepers’ job and it requires daily attention. Of course, most of the time this ledger is kept virtually – whether in a spreadsheet or using a software. 

Other tasks bookkeepers are responsible for include the posting of debits and credits, creating invoices, and completing payroll. The complexity of the job is entirely dependent on the size of the business and the amount of business that’s conducted. The size of the company also determines if the bookkeeper will be solely responsible for their tasks, or if the work will be split between several bookkeepers. If it’s the latter, oftentimes there is a team just for payroll, one for invoicing, and one for maintaining expenses. 

Accountants

Accountants have a more high-level involvement in a business’ finances and they primarily take the information that the bookkeepers collect and analyze it. Data is analyzed by accountants to determine the financial health of the business, to prepare company financial statements, and decipher any anomalies that need to be addressed. Accountants are also often responsible for the business’ taxes – if not solely, they at least partner with a tax firm. 

After accountants make their analyses of the bookkeeping they then have the responsibility to share any findings with stakeholders and help them visualize the larger picture of the business’ finances. Often, functional leaders rely on accounting to help them make strategic business decisions and create financial forecastings to determine the impact of their potential decisions on the financial health of the business. 

The Differences Between Bookkeepers and Accountants

To summarize the differences between bookkeepers and accountants, bookkeepers are responsible for chasing down and recording income and expenses, while accountants are responsible for analyzing the information bookkeepers provide. Accounting is a higher-level function that requires a larger understanding of the business’ goals and is involved in strategic decisions surrounding the business’ future. Bookkeeping, on the other hand, is the backbone of a financially healthy business and the accuracy of the data they provide directs the business. 

No matter if you need additional bookkeeping or accounting assistance for your business, PAS consulting has highly-trained professionals for the job. Give us a call to discuss the needs of your business today!

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What Is a Controller?

A controller is usually the head of the finance department, reporting only to the CFO, or the Chief Financial Officer. The controller usually manages a variety of employees in the finance department like accountants, payroll managers, and tax managers. Treasurers are another part of a well-rounded finance department, but they are often considered a peer to controllers and also report directly to the CFO. 

The structure we just described is one for a larger company, but in a smaller business, the structure of the finance department is a lot simpler. Many times in a small business the controller reports to the president or owner of the company and will just have an accounts payable clerk to assist them. The structure of the finance department is completely dependent on the size of the business and the cash flow they handle. 

What Does a Controller Do?

Now that you understand what a controller is, let’s take a look at what they do. As we mentioned, a controller is typically the head of the finance department, so their day-to-day is very high level. They’re often double checking or approving the work of the clerks and accountants that report to them, or putting together reports for the CFO and other executives. 

Common tasks of a controller include creating budgets, overseeing payroll, signing sales tax returns, signing checks, and managing strategic plans. Of course, along with the business responsibilities, as a people manager, full-time controllers are also responsible for overseeing performance reviews and having hard discussions with their employees when needed. 

Does My Business Need a Controller?

Not every business needs a controller, and the ones who do may not need one permanently or full-time. This is where a controller consultant or finance consulting agency comes into the picture. During especially hectic times like tax season, hiring a controller or an additional controller through a consulting agency can be extremely beneficial for your business. 

Not only will a part-time controller save your business money since you won’t have to hire another full-time employee, but the time they will save you is invaluable. The expertise a controller can bring to your company can completely turn around your business’ finances for the better. 

If you’re located in the central Texas area, choose PAS Consulting for all of your part-time and interim controller needs. Our controllers are experts in their fields and are available to share their expertise with your business. Give us a call today to discuss your finance department’s needs!

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Now that you have a quick understanding of the high-level differences between controllers vs. CFO, let’s take a look at their differences at a more granular level. 

What Do Controllers Do? 

A controller is responsible for approving all day to day transactions within a business and for creating reports that reflect these transactions. However, a controller isn’t only responsible for money going out of the business, they’re also responsible for accounts receivables and accounts payable. A good way to summarize the duties of a controller is to say they manage the daily finance operations. 

A controller typically manages four additional functions: accounting managers, financial planning managers, accounts receivable managers, and accounts payable managers. Depending on the size of the organization, you may have individual people filling these roles, or there could be several people with the same position. If the business is really small, it might be a single controller filling all of these roles. 

What Do CFOs Do?

A CFO, or Chief Financial Officer, is responsible for the entirety of a business’ finances. There are three main functions that report to CFOs: controllers, treasurers, and tax managers. As with the functions a controller manages, the amount of people reporting to a CFO is dependent on the size of the company. 

The primary responsibility of a CFO is to manage the budget and budget forecasting including projections and planning. A CFO isn’t just responsible for understanding the current state of a company’s financials, they also need to be familiar with past finances and future financial estimates. When compared to a controller, a CFO has a much more high-level role and isn’t as involved with daily operations. 

It’s important to note that becoming a CFO isn’t a natural progression from being a controller. A CFO needs a much broader understanding of finances and planning as the entire business will be looking to them for financial guidance. CFOs need to understand business operations and business risks, and how finances can impact business decisions. 

Now that you understand the differences between a controller and CFO, do you understand why both roles are so important? If you’re looking for CFO services on a part-time or interim basis, trust PAS Consulting to save you money and give your business the results you need. Give us a call today to learn more!

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A full charge bookkeeper is tasked with the same role as any bookkeeper – to manage the accounts of a business. Full charge bookkeepers manage: 

• Accounts payable: Payments to outside vendors for products and services; all accounts payable payments need to be paid in the amount of time outlined in their contract. 
• Business invoicing: Depending on your business structure, your full charge bookkeeper may be invoicing clients for your services, or paying incoming invoices from third parties and contractors. 
• Employee payroll: Full charge bookkeepers often are responsible for processing payroll for full time and/or part time employees.
• Taxes: While full charge bookkeepers are not CPAs.  They prepare financials that are submitted to the CPA firm in order for your company to process tax returns or obtain legal tax advise. Having a great bookkeeping will give your CPA peach of mind when preparing your company’s tax return.
• Business bank accounts: Full charge bookkeepers need to understand expenses going out of your bank accounts and the income coming in so that the business is always in the black. 

The differences between a full charge bookkeeper and a typical bookkeeper is that a full charge bookkeeper is entirely responsible for the above tasks and they report directly to company presidents, CEOs, and other senior managers. 

Because full charge bookkeepers work alone, this role is only feasible in a small business. If a business grows, it’ll be in need of a controller, or a person to manage multiple accountants and bookkeepers. 

Full charge bookkeepers should have a strong history of accounting and bookkeeping experience to understand the ins and outs of managing a small business’ finances. After all, they’ll be solely responsible for the finances, so they need to really understand what they’re doing. 

Depending on the size and type of business you have, you might not need to hire a full-time full charge bookkeeper; in fact, hiring a bookkeeping consultant could be a better decision for your business. Give our experts at PAS Consulting LLC a call today to see if our services would be a good fit for your business goals.

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The term bookkeeper or accountant have often been used interchangeably (we don’t really care what you call us), maybe Queen of Spain it has a nice ring to it, but what we are hired to do is to keep the records of the financial affairs of the business up to date and in order.  This gives the business owner clean financials that let them see EVERYTHING going on in a way that makes sense (yay).  To do this we take all of the transactions that have occurred each month (ex: debit card, credit card, and bank deposits) add them to your accounting software and make sure everything balances to the penny (reconciled).  This is the very first step of what we do.  We are not a CPA firm, but often our clients have used the term accountant / bookkeeper interchangeably when referring to our work.

We are REALLY good at what we do, so much so that we often take over projects from fancy CPA firms ($400/hr CPA rates) who also provide bookkeeping services.  Often a CEO wants the BEST and they assume their top dollar CPA firm can provide the top bookkeeping service.  After taking over multiple bookkeeping projects from CPA firms I like to summarize it like this, we specialize in organizing and customizing your books to each of our clients individual business based needs.  We keep it clean and transparent.  Your CPA is up to speed on Tax Law and can advise on decisions as to your best position related to Corporate tax decisions and process your tax return.  When the CPA firms receive our super awesome clean financial reports they love our services.  We work hand in hand.  The client loves the clean transition and it works like clockwork.  I just used the word love repeatedly in this article so apparently, I love what I do.  I have worked with many different CPA firms and built wonderful relationships with them, but we specialize in bookkeeping and we are darn good at it.  Think top 1% bookkeepers, think PAS Consulting, LLC.  Thanks for reading.

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