External Controller
Oversight and review for businesses with in-house accounting staff. A second set of eyes on the books and reporting.
What This Is
You have an in-house bookkeeper or a small accounting team. They handle the daily work, but you want someone reviewing what they do. Not because you don’t trust them, but because every set of books benefits from a second set of eyes. Errors slip through. Categorizations drift. Reports start to look fine on the surface while something underneath is off.
An external controller works alongside your existing staff. We review reconciliations, examine financial statements, check that transactions are coded consistently, and flag anything that looks unusual. Your team keeps doing their work. We make sure the output is accurate and the reporting actually reflects what’s happening in the business.
The Review Work
The Review Work
Monthly review of reconciliations, journal entries, and financial statements. Spot-checking transaction coding and account balances. Comparing month-over-month trends to catch unusual swings. Reviewing how your in-house team is closing the books and where the process could be tightened.
The Reporting
The Reporting
Clean financial reports you can actually use. P&L, balance sheet, and cash flow with commentary on what changed and why. Custom reports for specific decisions you’re working through. Reporting that goes beyond what the software spits out and tells you something useful about the business.
Why This Matters
In-house accounting staff are usually busy with the daily mechanics. Recording transactions, paying bills, running payroll, closing the month. They don’t always have time to step back and look at the bigger picture. They also don’t have anyone above them checking their work. If something is being done wrong, it just keeps being done wrong until someone outside the process notices.
Hiring a full-time controller is expensive. For most small and mid-sized businesses, it isn’t justified by the volume of work. But going without any oversight has its own cost. Errors compound. Bad data leads to bad decisions. By the time the problem surfaces, it’s been months in the making and unwinding it is painful.
The Blind Spot
The Blind Spot
When the same person does the work and reviews the work, the review isn’t really a review. They categorized that transaction the way they thought was right. They’re not going to question themselves. An outside reviewer asks questions that someone inside the process wouldn’t think to ask.
The Cost of Mistakes
The Cost of Mistakes
A miscoded expense category here, a missed accrual there. Small issues by themselves. But when they add up across a year, your financial statements stop reflecting reality. You make pricing decisions, hiring decisions, and tax decisions based on numbers that aren’t quite right.
What Changes
Your in-house staff keeps handling their work, but now they have someone above them to ask questions. They can flag situations they’re unsure about instead of guessing. They get feedback on what they’re doing well and where their process could be sharper. Most bookkeepers actually appreciate this. It takes the pressure off being the only one responsible for getting things right.
You get financial reports you can trust. When the month closes, you know the numbers have been looked at by someone with the experience to catch what shouldn’t be there. You can use those reports to make real decisions instead of treating them as rough estimates.
Reports You Can Use
Reports You Can Use
Financial statements that have been reviewed and explained. You understand what the numbers mean, not just what they say. When the gross margin moves three points, you know whether it’s a real shift or a coding issue that needs to be corrected.
Support for Your Team
Support for Your Team
Your bookkeeper or accountant has someone to call when they hit a question they can’t answer. How to handle an unusual transaction. Whether a vendor should be a 1099. How to record a new type of revenue. They get help instead of guessing, and the work gets done correctly the first time.
Trusted Accounting for Small Businesses
First Step:
Start With a Call
Tell us about your business and what you need help with. We'll ask a few questions, evaluate your current situation, and let you know how GMJ can support your books, taxes, and day-to-day operations.
