How Do I Become a Corporate Controller?

Corporate controllers are experts who oversee their companies’ finances by managing funds, monitoring the organizations’ ledgers, and producing reports that comply with government regulations. These professionals must have leadership skills for supervising teams of employees. If you would like to become a corporate controller, you need to finish four years of undergraduate training, and you also should consider completing two years of graduate school.

An individual who plans to become a corporate controller must complete a four-year bachelor’s degree in accounting. You have to turn in your high school diploma or the equivalent certification along with your most recent standardized exam results to your potential training institution’s admissions committee. The school will demand to see your high school class transcript and a completed enrollment application as well.

Finance courses teach you the skills you need to be competitive in the job market. You should study how to read and produce accounting documents such as statements of cash flows and balance sheets, which show how money is going into and leaving a company, as well as an organization’s total assets and liabilities, respectively. Understanding these concepts is important for someone who wishes to become a corporate controller because he or she is responsible for developing reports that reveal the business’ financial status.

Even if your training program does not require you to complete an internship, you need to consider doing this. Gaining hands-on experience and putting this on your resume will draw more employers to you when you begin your job search. As an intern, you must help a company to make sure that it is obeying established tax legislations, and you should become accustomed to monitoring personnel payroll items. In addition, you have to participate in activities related to cost accounting — a process used to create budgets and to make monetary decisions in an effort to control costs and, therefore, generate greater profits. Learning these tasks will prepare you to become a corporate controller.

Completing a two-year master’s degree program in accounting also is necessary to make yourself more employable. This type of program covers financial regulations and reporting methods in detail and requires that you take and pass a comprehensive exam before you are able to graduate. Earning an advanced degree in the field makes you eligible to complete an institute exam to receive certification in this industry, which employers prefer that you have. Attaining this type of credential proves your mastery of concepts in this career area and not only gives you more job opportunities, but also can result in a higher salary as you seek to become a corporate controller.