How to Start as a Financial Controller

You ask a good question. One that is hard to answer however not knowing anything about the company or its financial health or your mandate.

Why don't you start by reviewing the job description and figure out what areas are your responsibility, and which are those of the CFO.
And try to figure out which parts of the finance organization are weak and can use improvements.

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I have some advice, given that I have the same titile (doesn't necessarily mean the roles are similar) and my position was newly created as well. Since the position is new, I have to warn you that there may be some slack in the the workload at first, meaning you may not have much to do for the first few months. That's okay, just take the time to learn about the company and try to offer help wherever you can. Make sure you learn the processes and also learn the whole cash flow process and product life cycles in terms of producing income. Also, make sure you learn everything you can about the people you need to work with and who you may have to ask for information from later.

Given your experience and licenses, you should be fine.

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Sadam - congrats on the new job! I agree with Ross and suggest you learn the company first; learn the business, operating processes and people. After that take a dive into the accounting and make sure you understand the current accounting and the team. When you speak with the CFO he will want to understand the financial performance of the company. You will need to be able to talk to the P&L by general ledger account but also by line of business. Building out your cash flow forecast will also be helpful so he can understand the ins and outs on a monthly basis. You will have to customize the approach based on your company and the industry you are in. It will really depend on how established the accounting and finance department are but from my experience I have never had any slack time since there is always something to improve or analyze.

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The company created a new role that you have landed in. Why? Is this new title for the position that was previously an Accounting Manager or similar? Do you have such a person, and other staff reporting to you? Or, was it created to handle the CFO's tasks while he is off on the ERP project? No need to answer all this - I am just pointing out that it is hard to assess your dilemma without more detail.

I assume you report directly to the CFO. Yet you have no way to get together with him for 3-4 months? Can't he find time for a couple of one hour phone calls to at least outline his expectations of you in the next few months, even without a formal job description. Even an email of bullet points that say "do this/manage this" for the next 3+ months. It seems very tough to be so adrift if nobody has even explained the mandate and responsibilities for your new role.

Tough to answer from the outside - I would try to nudge the CFO a little harder from the inside. I know that ERP implementation can demand a lot of time, but if your new role is to handle the "other stuff" while he is otherwise engaged, that CFO is still responsible for that "other stuff".

And . . . Try picking the brains of your direct accounting reports to get the grass roots knowledge of what normally goes in the accounting cycle. Daily, weekly, monthly. If nothing else, you can make sure that all still operates ok.

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