The Fast Close Toolkit

CHAPTER SEVENRoles and Responsibilities During the Fiscal Close

INTRODUCTION: TODAY, AN ACCOUNTING executive's role is expanding to include more responsibilities as management understands the impact on the company. With oversight of all accounting activities, business processes and financial reporting, the accounting executive's position yields a solid organization-wide view of the company.

While an executive's and controller's role may differ somewhat in small versus large organizations and in private versus public companies, overall the controller is usually viewed as an accounting leader for the organization. Some organizations may refer to the controller as the chief accounting officer (CAO) while others may have a separate position for this role. Government and nonprofit organizations may refer to the controller as the “comptroller.”

In some smaller organizations, the controller may assume the responsibilities usually held by the chief financial officer (CFO) at larger companies. And a large public organization may have divisional, functional, regional, subsidiary, and business unit controllers. These positions still have fiscal closing responsibilities for their respective areas and frequencies.

TACTICAL RESPONSIBILITIES

Payroll	Description of Activity	Frequency	Responsibilities
	Run the final payroll for the fiscal period	Monthly	Payroll Administrator
	Run accrual report	Monthly	Payroll Administrator
	Prepare payroll accruals	Monthly	General Ledger or Corporate ...