Outsourced ControllerWhat does an outsourced controller do?
You're looking for an outsourced controller, and you want to know what would come off your plate. In short, the controller job lives outside your company, and it covers the dates, the approvals, the vendor files and the proof that each filing happened. Tax CFO Steven Palmieri leads that work, and Steven and his team do it so you aren't left carrying it in your head.
See the first month
The job in plain words
Think of everything in a small company's money that repeats or needs a second pair of hands. A payroll return comes due every quarter. A form has to be on file before a contractor is paid. Someone has to decide who can spend. A deposit has to land where it should. None of these is hard. All of them are easy to forget, and the person who forgets usually learns about it from a letter.
A controller owns that list. They write it down, assign each item and confirm when it's done. A controller's month is the close, the filings, and a file that shows each one happened.
What outsourced means here
It means the controller work is done outside your company, by people who do it for many owners. You keep two things. You keep the final say on every decision, and you keep authority over the bank. What you hand over is the tracking and the checking.
That arrangement suits a team of three or thirty, where hiring a full-time person for the calendar and the controls would be more than the work needs.
What the first month looks like
We start by making three lists. The first is every recurring date and who owns it. The second is every account that can move money, meaning each bank account, each card, and each app that can send a payment, and who can reach it. The third is every vendor you pay who doesn't have a form on file.
Those lists are usually a surprise. Owners often learn that two people can pay the same bill, that one filing has no owner, or that several vendors were paid for a year with no paperwork. None of that is a scandal. It's just the first time anyone wrote it down, and now there's something concrete to fix.
How it works with your bookkeeper and your payroll provider
Each keeps its own job. Your bookkeeper enters the activity. Your payroll provider runs payday and files the payroll returns. We watch both from the side. We confirm the provider's filings landed, the deposits match and the books agree. Hiring a provider doesn't hand the employer's responsibility to someone else, as the IRS puts it, so a second person should confirm the work. That second person is us.
You can see the full approach to the filings on the filing calendar, and who may approve a payment on who approves what.
Cases where this is the wrong fit
A company that has its own finance team and already owns its controls may need an internal review function, which is different work. A company that needs a formal examination of its controls or its statements needs a licensed outside firm. And an owner who wants someone to run payroll will find that a full-service provider does that. We set it up and we watch it. You can read the whole boundary on the line page.
A few things owners tell us after the first month
One is relief at seeing the dates written down. Another is surprise at how many people could move money. A third is a short list of vendors who never filled out a form, and a plan to fix that before the year-end forms are due. None of that needs a second ledger. QuickBooks Online stays the one we confirm, and we build custom dashboards and reports with AI so you can see how the month went without learning another system. It still needs a person whose job it is to look.
The watching also gives you something to point to. When a lender, a buyer or a new partner asks whether the company's filings are in order, you can answer from a record instead of from hope.
What changes for the owner
Before, you had a vague worry. After, you have a short, honest list. The low, steady worry gets a place to go. You know who owns each date. You can see the approvals on one page. And when someone asks for proof that a filing happened, there's a file to open.
On the calendar. The one recurring check this page adds is a monthly walk through the three lists, so that a new vendor, a new account or a new filing is added the month it appears and not the month it causes trouble.