How to Make Being a Controller an Impossible Job
by Robert V. Lally

We get to see a lot of different approaches to controllership. In our role as auditors, dealing with controllers is a key relationship. We have seen it all. Fabulous and awful. Just for fun, listed below is our hall of fame of things controllers do (or that others make them do) which makes controllership difficult. Controllers, of course, undoubtedly keep their own list of what accountants do.

Write a lot of checks and don't mail them.
We love this. Payables will be understated, but the bank account will have more cash in it than you think. The bank reconciliation will also take about three hours. Finally, you take a day off, someone finds all the paid bills with written checks and drops them in the mail. The resulting overdraft will do much to endear you to your banker.

Set up of lots of related companies, better yet have all the names similar.
This is a particular favorite on the way to accounting chaos. Set up ten or twenty small, single purpose entities. Give them all similar names. Refer to them interchangeably. For example: put the company car in a separate entity. The parent company could be Smith, Inc. Call the car company Smith's, Inc. Then refer to Smith and Smiths all the time, no matter which company is actually involved.

Have every company use the same checking account, settle everything through due to/due from accounts.
Yes, we love this, too. In theory, this should be possible. In practice, the intercompanies will get out of balance and nothing will tie out. The intercompany accounts will soon be beyond the ability of God to sort out.

Start a new company and never figure out the opening balance sheet.
Another classic favorite. Just start doing business without ever figuring out what you started with. Closing will be so much more fun when you are trying to both close and open at the same time. A variation on this theme is to start the new company without its own checking account. See intercompany account tirade above. Better yet, finance the first six months on your American Express card and then try to sort out the opening balance sheet.

Reconcile bank accounts once a year.
This is so terrifying it should be a ride at Disneyland. We see it often, nonetheless. Unopened bank statements, still in the original envelopes. The actual reconciliation is usually prompted by a bank notice (or phone call) that checks have bounced.

Budget everything by taking last year's numbers and dividing by 12.
Yes, you're ahead of snow plowing in August. But never mind, you were behind on heating oil in March. We love this kind of careful attention to seasonality. Bankers also love to see this type of thoughtfulness.

Set owner's draw at 125% of the best year the company ever had.
You will be a star for at least part of one month. The owner will love you. A further wrinkle on this. Forget to coordinate with the owner and his tax accountant when the quarterly estimated payments are due. Once the owner is used to spending and planning on 100 cent dollars, it is a harsh awakening to realize he should have only spent 60 cents.