Whether there is a recession or a boom in the global market, career opportunities in finance and accounting have always been enormous! And why not? Finance and accounting is one of the most important departments in any type of organizational entity, as business always revolves around money! It is money for which businesses start, continue, and finally end. One such finance and accounting job, which is high in demand is that of the comptroller. A comptroller can be defined as a person associated with the finance and accounting department, who looks after the maintenance of accounting, administrative, and financial services of the organization, for meeting legislative requirements. To put in simple words, it can also be said that the comptroller is the chief accountant of an organization. Although this definition covers the entire scope of duties and responsibilities of a comptroller, the following text provides a job description, salary range, and also educational requirements of the same. Job Description of a Comptroller The scope of duties of a comptroller include financial, accounting, and administrative related work. The reporting head of the comptroller is the senior administrative officer or manager.

• Establishing and maintaining cash controls and reconciling of general ledgers and bank statements.
• Providing assistance to the senior authorities in preparing the annual budget and also the annual audit.
• Maintaining the purchase order system.
• Adhering and implementing the financial procedures and policies, set by the higher management.
• Supervising investments and cash reserves.
• Monitoring data entry systems and procedures.
• Preparing and systematically maintaining all supplier accounts.
• Verifying charges and ensuring security of all credit cards.
• Preparing income statements and also keeping tabs of transactions and their entry in the computerized accounting database.
• Classifying and maintaining financial files and records, according to the year.
• Working on the preparation of quarterly reports, monthly financial statements, and balance sheets.
• Reconciling the payable accounts, receivable accounts, and preparing journal summaries.
• Issuing receipts for all the accounting transactions.
• Maintaining records pertaining to the financial systems.
• Issuing, coding, and authorizing purchase orders.
• Compiling source documents.
• Reconciling source deposits.
• Office management duties of the comptroller include the maintenance of filing systems, security systems of documents, maintaining insurance coverage, and responding to customer and employee queries.
• The administrative work involves employee management duties such as, reviewing payroll reports, receiving employee work reports from other departments and calculating their salaries, contributions, and deductions (if any).
• Processing and distributing pay checks.
• Maintaining and ensuring proper updating of the leave system.
• Making adjustments to the payroll wherever necessary.
• Ensuring the proper documentation of the records and documents of the new employees in the accounting system.
• Looking after the administration of benefit entitlements.
• Verifying and reporting on benefit payments.

Comptrollers are amongst the key members of the organization. So now let us move ahead to know about the educational requirements and salary range of the same. Educational Requirements The comptroller's job is not an easy one. Rather, comptrollers are highly responsible people, looking after the accounts, finance, and administration tasks of the organization. The position, therefore, needs a well-educated and qualified personnel. To seek a job as a comptroller, a bachelor's degree in accounting is necessary. Some organizations might demand a master's degree in finance or accounting. However, it depends upon the organization and the scope of work. Apart from this, thorough knowledge of the latest accounting software, financial software, management systems, payroll procedures, knowledge of verifying and interpreting financial data and records, excellent communication skills to coordinate with the employees and management personnel of other department, are also essential for the position of a comptroller. Salary Range The job of a comptroller is counted amongst the better paying jobs. The salary range of an entry-level/freshman comptroller is around USD 65,000 to USD 70,000. Comptrollers with moderate experience earn around USD 100,000 to USD 105,000 and the most experienced in the industry earn more than USD 150,000. From this, one can guess that it is experience, knowledge, and performance that strongly influence the comptroller salary range. Remember, comptrollers are highly responsible people, as they deal with the money matters of the organization. Therefore besides formal education, honesty and alertness can also be essential pre-requisites for this job.