Controller Interview Questions

Hiring a Controller is a big deal. It’s an incredibly important role and getting it wrong can pose a serious risk to any company. Asking generic questions about strengths and weaknesses, problem solving skills, and attention to detail won’t reveal much.

It’s important to ask the right questions to uncover a candidate’s potential, experience, and emotional intelligence. It’s equally important for you as a candidate to understand what you should be communicating during an interview as well.

I’ve been recruiting Controllers for companies for a decade. I’ve been trained by Big 4 CPAs and private industry CFOs in how to interview for this critical position and today I’m going to share with you some of my go-to interview questions and answers.

Types of Controllers

The problem with most of the articles about interview questions for Financial Controllers is that they assume all Controllers are the same. That would be a mistake. Over the years I’ve noticed that most Controllers fall into two categories.

Operational Controller

The first type of Controller I’m often tasked with finding is what I call an operational controller. This person is often heavily involved with the operations of the company from a financial perspective.

They are constantly partnering with other operational managers to provide insight and recommendations on how to improve efficiencies and profitability. In many cases, they are the top accounting and finance executives in the company. In other words, there is no CFO. They oversee both accounting and finance.

If this is you and this is the type of role you’re pursuing, it will do you well to discuss how your insights have led to increased revenue and decreased costs. Talk about how you manage lean teams because these roles are often found in smaller organizations.

Reporting Controller

The second type of Controller I’m frequently asked to find is the reporting controller. This person is a true numbers cruncher and spends most of their time reviewing financial information, partnering with public accounting firms, and ensuring compliance with regulations. Many times there are former CPAs themselves and they usually work in companies with a separate finance team.

If this is the type of role you’re pursuing, you’ll want to highlight your technical accounting experience over operational insights.

Interview Questions for Both Types of Controllers

Whether you’re preparing for your next interview as a Controller candidate or as a hiring manager, here are some questions to prepare for and ask. Keep in mind that not all of these questions make sense for every Controller role. Some Controllers may not do some of the things I list below and they are still great Controllers. As I mentioned before, not all Controller roles are the same, so prepare for the type of role you are interviewing for.

Department Management

Question: What functional areas have you had oversight for?

Answer: Controllers come in all shapes and sizes. Some only oversee the financial close. Others oversee all operational accounting including accounts payable and accounts receivable. And some even have oversight of HR, IT, and other departments. Knowing the scope of experience will give you a lot of insight.

Location Management

Question: How many facilities have you overseen? In what states or countries?

Answer: There is no right or wrong answer here, but it’s important to gauge the scope of the candidate’s experience. While someone who has only overseen one location may be able to manage multiple, there is a level of complexity involved when you have financial data coming in from multiple locations and multiple countries.

Financial Close Management

Question: What are the keys to moving a 10-day close to a 5-day close?

Answer: This answer is important because it will show the depth of the candidate’s experience. The candidate should talk about how they work with other departments and have a logical process. For example, if they mention doing fixed and prepaid accounts ahead of the closing date and then closing subledgers such as inventory and AP on day one, then making adjustments on day 2, and then finishing journal entries and reviewing on day 3, that is a process.

Question: How many days do you close? How do you manage the close? What do you do with standing accruals?

Answer: Rather than concern yourself over the exact number of closing days, what you should listen for is whether they have done a hard close and whether or not it’s what I call a perpetual close, meaning they’re closing the books all month-long. Listen for mentions of a closing checklist and how they delegate duties. Have they implemented cut-offs and when do they do their various reconciliations? You’re looking for a process that makes sense.

Accuracy

Question: How do you support journal entries and how do you identify errors made by staff members?

Answer: There are two things you should listen for here. First, they have a process to ensure all journal entries are supported. And second, they have a quality control process to ensure errors are flagged and staff members are coached through them.

Estimations

Question: What estimation accounts have you worked with?

Answer: Not every company’s financials are as complex as the next. This question helps figure out the complexity of the companies they’ve worked with. If all they’ve ever worked with are examples such as warranties, bad debt, or sales returns and allowances, these are fairly simple estimations. But if the candidate speaks about capitalization of intellectual property or self-insured workers compensation, those are very complicated estimations that only a select few have experience with.

Financial Close Review

Question: How do you review the close? What’s your process?

Answer: The interviewer should listen for a process. Listen for the candidate to discuss how they organize everything, whether they look at each account or a sample of accounts, how they give comments to staff members, and how they meet with their teams to make sure they understand those comments.

Candidates then should discuss how they review prior-to-current year, 3-month trends for P&L, TTM, and KPIs. Do they do certain capitalizations quarterly and how do they look at the P&L to see what things belong on the balance sheet?

Reporting

Question: Tell me about your ability to analyze financial reports and prepare reports and comments for upper management.

Answer: Candidates should discuss how they develop management dashboards, segment reports, and utilization of reporting tools. Keep in mind that not all Controllers will do these things, but if they are also involved in finance, they should.

Balance Sheet Adjustments

Question: Do you review every balance sheet reconciliation? How do you determine or approve the appropriate adjustments?

Answer: Look for alignment with your company’s best practices.

Elimination Entries

Question: What type of elimination entries are important?

Answer: Listen for things such as equity accounts against investment accounts, intercompany payables and receivables, gain in sale, and disposal of fixed assets.

Consolidations

Question: What consolidation entries have you done? How do you go about reconciling it? How do you keep the entries clean? How do you reconcile differences and resolve them when you have large amounts?

Answer: Listen for a process. If the candidate discusses things such as lining up all the entries, that’s a good sign.

Inventory

Question: How do you book physical inventory?

Answer: Some Controllers go out and physically count inventory, others usually oversee it while operations do the counts. Listen for how the candidate compares those physical counts to the general ledger information from invoices and how they make a true-up and adjustment.

Financial Statement Preparation

Question: What financial statements have you prepared? Tell me about your process to generate them.

Answer: If you’re hiring for a technical Controller, then listen for whether they prepare a formal Statement of Cash Flow. If they say yes, ask them about how many non-cash they have. If they can’t answer that, they’re not really producing a Statement of Cash Flow. Also, listen for whether they are producing them off the system or in financial statement format using Excel or a report writer.

Financial Presentations

Question: What kind of reporting did you do? How did you report them and distribute them?

Answer: Listen for whether they reported for investors, banks, and groups of operational teams. The candidate should discuss KPIs, the end user, and why those reports are being done.

Question: Did you present to management? Who were you presenting to and in what format? How often did you present KPIs to management?

Answer: KPI involvement is something all A players incorporate. Also listen to if they reported to private equity, banks, internal operations, investors, or the owner. Listen for how they presented their materials. Did they build PowerPoint decks and present them to the board or other teams? Did they field questions during those presentations and how did they prepare for and handle those questions?

Audit

Question: Did you interface with external auditors? What audit firms have you dealt with? Were they reviews, compilations, or audits?

Answer: The audit firm specifically doesn’t matter, but rather the size of the firm. There is a huge difference between being audited by a local or regional firm and a Big 4 firm. Also, be sure you understand if they’ve been through an actual audit. Some people like to count reviews and compilations. They are not the same.

Question: How do you work through errors and issues that arise during an audit? How do you work with the CPA firm when there is a finding? How do you resolve audit issues when they come up?

Answer: Listen for a process to examine the findings. Do they resolve all findings or only the significant ones? What are the ramifications of not resolving an issue? Do they ever push back on the auditors?

Question: How many adjusting journal entries are you making vs posting journal entries?

Answer: Listen for how many changes they have to do after an audit. You want a clean set of books that are done correctly. There will often be findings, but the fewer significant findings and changes, the better.

GAAP

Question: What sources do you use to research GAAP? How do you stay on top of new accounting pronouncements? What’s the latest new pronouncement you’ve had to execute

Answer: Most experts will read ASCs, not turn to Google. This question may not be as important for operational controller roles, but it will be relevant for those technical controllers.

Question: Explain the difference between GAAP and IFRS.

Answer: The candidate most likely will discuss how GAAP is rules-based and IFRS principles-based, although in recent years it seems the two have moved closer to one another. The candidate may discuss how IFRS prohibits LIFO inventory methods and GAAP does not or that GAAP requires financial statements to include a statement of comprehensive income while IFRS does not.

Foreign Currency Translation

Question: If the US books $1,000, then China receives it and books it as a different amount on a different day, what do you do?

Answer: The candidate should talk about how they investigate and match transactions between the two countries. Listen for if they run it through subledgers which make it easier to see each entry.

Bank Reporting

Question: Tell me about your experience with cash forecasting and reporting to outside lenders.

Answer: Listen for things such as if they are utilizing a borrowing base and how often. If they are doing covenant reporting, what ratios do they find important? Do they discuss tools such as Hyperion or Excel?

Question: How do you calculate interest and maintain the interest payable schedule?

Answer: The candidate should discuss the debt balance and the interest rate and time period.

Internal Controls

Question: What process, procedure, or internal controls have you designed or modified?

Answer: Some of the most common ones are bank reconciliations or fixed asset capitalization, but there are many others they could discuss. Listen for how the project got started, why they modified the process and the impact that came from it. Great candidates tackle the most important risks first.

Question: Tell me about your walkthrough, testing, and remediation of financial reporting controls.

Sales Tax

Question: How do you calculate sales tax and determine the jurisdiction? How many states have you processed sales tax for? How do you determine if an item is exempt in some states?

Answer: The candidate should discuss ship location and complexities with internet sales and interstate commerce. Also, pay attention to whether they have been through sales tax audits before.

Property Tax

Question: What property tax forms have you completed?

Answer: The candidate should mention a 571(L) in California or the relevant document in your state.

Risk Management

Question: What do you do to manage risk in your department?

Answer: Listen for the candidate to discuss liaising with insurance agents, and working with upper management to mitigate insurance risks such as D&O, E&O, liability, property damage, life insurance, and succession planning.

Annual Budget

Question: What has been your involvement in preparing an annual budget and reforecasting?

Answer: Everyone does a P&L, but candidates who discuss budgeting balance sheets and statements of cash flows may have a higher degree of experience. If they don’t mention these things, ask about how they know they’re meeting banking covenants. Also, listen for the candidate to mention KPIs which should drive the budget and forecast.

Financial Analysis

Question: Walk me through any ROI, IRR, or NPV analysis you’ve done. What was the result of it?

Answer: Listen to how they went about analyzing the information, how they made sense of it, who they pulled in to help, why they did it, and what recommendations came from it. This question should help you distinguish whether they are simply producing numbers for managers or if they are making recommendations based on those numbers.

Hiring

Question: What attributes or skills do you look for when hiring junior team members?

Answer: There isn’t one right answer to this question. Listen for concrete, measurable items, a justification for those attributes and skills, and their process to assess them.

Prioritization

Question: What is your process for prioritizing work?

Answer: The best candidates discuss their method for assessing the business importance of each task and the spillover benefits of completing certain tasks. My least favorite answers usually involve handling tasks based on the seniority of the person who requested the work.

System Implementation

Question: Tell me about an ERP system you implemented. What challenges did you encounter, how’d you work through them, and what was the implementation’s impact on the organization?

Answer: Listen to what parts of the implementation they were responsible for. Were they involved in selection as well? Did they run parallel systems or another process to ensure the system was ready to go without risking data loss?

Other Controller Interview Questions I’ve Seen and Liked

1. What governance would you put in place around cash?

2. If you could only look at one financial statement to evaluate the health of our company, which would it be and why?

3. What do you include with working capital?

4. What is the difference between accounts receivable and deferred revenue?

5. How do you calculate free cash flow?

6. When do you capitalize rather than expense a purchase?

7. Under what circumstances does goodwill increase?

8. If you had the choice to pay using a wire, ACH, or corporate credit card, how would you determine which to use?

9. What impact would increasing an ESOP have on the financial statements?

10. What creates an FX gain or loss?

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Cole Sperry has been a recruiter and resume writer since 2015, working with tens of thousands of job seekers, and hundreds of employers. Today Cole runs a boutique advisory firm consulting with dozens of recruiting firms and is the Managing Editor at OptimCareers.com.