Question:

“Has FEI done a survey asking where the controller organization reports, whether up through the business heads or through the finance leadership?”

Response:

A few resources may be of interest.

In my analysis of the data from FEI’s 2006 Financial Executive Compensation survey, we asked financial executives to whom they reported. For public company controllers, here’s a summary of their responses:

Of the 124 corporate controllers responding, 112 reported to the corporate CFO, with the rest reporting to others.

Of the 44 divisional/geographic/regional controllers, 19 reported to the divisional CFO, 5 to the corporate controller, 6 to the corporate CFO, 5 to the divisional CEO, with the rest to others, such as operating management.

In 2007, FERF published Building an Agile Finance Function

This research report examines the sourcing the finance function. The case studies on pages 22 to 28 toward the back provide examples of company finance functions (including controllers). The interviews for this report indicated that centralized or shared services tended to report upwards to corporate with decentralized reporting to business units. ERP vs. disparate systems as well as organic vs. acquisition growth also was a factor. The more decentralized, the more such functions reported to units.

According to Robert Half International:

“In corporate accounting, we typically have the controller reporting up through the finance department. A typical rank order of positions from high to low would be:

CFO

VP of Finance

Director of Finance

Director of Accounting

Treasurer

Asst. Treasurer

Controller

Asst. Controller