Regulators, investors and company leaders are increasingly demanding more from finance departments, leaving controllers scrambling to find creative ways to staff their teams.
These new reporting and data asks require skilled accountants at a time when accounting and finance talent are hard to come by, Brenna Albert, global controller at medical supply company Medline, and Gregg D’Eon, corporate controller at the fantasy sports betting company DraftKings, said on a panel hosted by the Controllers Council last week.
Both conceded their industries — medical devices and gaming — are highly regulated already, but they’ve observed that these pressures seem to be increasing with time.
New regulatory demands have been “the biggest challenge I’ve seen over the last few years,” D’Eon said. It represents “an entire workstream” in order to “make sure regulators understand us and our technology and they get some comfort over the information and reporting.”
Albert, meanwhile, noted that rising expectations from regulators comes alongside increased scrutiny from auditors, as they themselves are facing increased pressure to “do more digging into our compliance side, outside financial regulation.” She added that the shortage of talent only “creates more challenges” with the heightened requirements faced by both companies and their auditors.
The central nature of the role of the controller, who typically oversee their company’s daily accounting operations, is generally reflected in their pay, with the position ranking among the most well-paid on finance teams, CFO Dive previously reported. They earn average salaries around $210,750, according to data from human resource consulting firm Robert Half.
More data, more often
Controllers are also facing demand for more frequent reporting and forecasting periods. What used to be a monthly process just a few years ago has become something weekly or even daily; for example, D’Eon said his company now has weekly reports and enters new data into the general ledger daily.
“We have a line of sight into how revenue is tracking, how our players are acting, where we’re tracking for that period — in addition to the typical month-end close, which is always a challenge in and of itself. But [reporting and forecasting] has been much more continuous from what I’ve seen,” he said.
It’s not just those inside the company who want frequent updates. Medline recently became private-equity sponsored, which Albert said has “certainly changed our requirements for reporting and forecasting” after many years of focusing more on growing the business and serving its customers. As a medical device company, she attributed this changed environment at least partially to the pandemic.
Yet while the demand for finance talent is rising, the supply of finance professionals has been shrinking for years. The panelists attributed this to a combination of the 150-hour CPA licensure rule which effectively requires a fifth year of college, negative perceptions of the accounting profession, and lower pay relative to fields like finance or technology. While they said a lot of work is being done to address these issues, until it’s solved they're relying on a combination of outsourcing and technology.
Both said they use a shared-service model that works with accountants in India to fill key gaps, and view these professionals as vital parts of their team who perform not just routine accounting tasks but complex jobs like data analysis or external reporting alongside those in the U.S.
“With the shortage of CPAs and the labor dynamics in the field… it can be tougher for us to recruit folks, say, in the suburbs so for a variety of reasons our team [in India] is an extremely critical part of the organization,” said Albert.
They’ve also used technology to automate many routine processes, such as accounts payable and receivable. While traditional AI is a major component of this upgrade, neither were diving into generative AI beyond things like drafting memos or job postings. D’Eon noted that, as accountants, “we need to make sure the numbers are right” but generative AI so far struggles with this. Still, in the long term, he said knowing how to use AI will be a vital skill for controllers.
“In a few years there will be a big division of people who know how to use AI and leverage it effectively and people who don’t, and you want to be in that first bucket for sure,” he said.
