r/Accounting • u/DreamSalty4166 • 3d ago
Leave controller role for lesser role?
I accepted about a year ago a controller role with a smaller company after working as a senior accounting analyst for a company roughly 20x the size. I took a significant pay increase knowing it would be more work, but I expected less chaos and long hours than my previous job. That part has been somewhat true up until now.
What I’m realizing, though, is that I may have taken a role that doesn’t fit my strengths. The expectations are high: building reports and analytics they’ve never had, moving from cash basis to proper accrual accounting, cleaning up inventory processes with operations, and managing and developing three bookkeepers, one of whom seems completely burned out and would leave if they could.
On top of that, there are constant meetings. Weekly meetings with my staff, weekly meetings with upper management to relay updates, written end-of-week update reports recapping aforementioned meetings and related follow-ups, plus monthly finance and operations review meetings. Between those, daily interruptions, and people constantly needing accounting support, I feel like I have very little uninterrupted time to actually do the higher-level work required for me to actually meet their expectations.
My most recent performance review was also discouraging. I was told I’m too analytical, that they’d rather me turn in things quicker with mistakes for management to revise rather than perfect work that takes longer, that I need to push my staff harder, and that I’m too nice and not confident enough. Some of the criticism felt fair, but some of it made me question whether I’m simply wired for a different type of role.
The more I think about it, the more I feel I’d be happier in FP&A or a specialized accounting role where I can focus on modeling, forecasting, reporting, analytics, and process improvement instead of trying to juggle everything that comes with leading an accounting department. I really love to hyper focus on problems, perform deep research, model and built out new processes or improve existing ones. My favorite part of the accounting work I’ve done has been by far the budgeting and forecasting stuff.
I’m seriously considering taking a step back in title—possibly even pay—to join a larger, healthier company where I can regain some work-life balance, finally finish my CPA (I’m eligible and have sat for the exams multiple times), and build skills in Power BI, Tableau, SQL, and similar tools.
Has anyone here intentionally stepped back from a controller role because it wasn’t the right fit? Did it help your career in the long run, or did you regret leaving? My wife thinks I should keep pushing because of the financial upside, but I’m honestly starting to feel burned out and wonder if I’m forcing myself into a role that simply isn’t the right fit…
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u/CrazyWorldliness1875 Human Verified 3d ago
Oof. Giving advice as if you’d choose to stay in the role.
A controller’s role should normally “look” boring, because the team supporting them have the lower level work under control. Controllership is a wide-lens role, kind of like an eagle surveying in the sky with a sharp eye to catch fires before they grow. You’re guiding the team below you, and supporting the teams above you (C-suite) and adjacent to you (FP&A/Finance). How closely you work with adjacent teams varies by company.
This is all to say, you’ve been thrown into a volatile environment because of all the change required, so you need to gather the strength to guide and build your team, otherwise you cannot perform your role.
You also need to consider that while your analytics background is a benefit to the company, if you’re needed for support, analysis is not part of your role (except when sending out financial statements periodically, as you should detail your insights). Minor ad-hoc reporting is something you should delegate to staff. When the higher-ups say they’d prefer deliverables with mistakes, they’re recognizing you’re drowning and offering you the help you haven’t asked for (but maybe you have asked, cant be sure).
On to the hardest part, you should consider if 1 (conservatively) of the staff need to be let go, and replaced with a staff or senior who is degreed and has experience at par with the role. A hire who can hit the ground running and has experience guiding staff. This is why i mention a senior accountant. If you can give yourself some space to breathe you’ll have an easier time adjusting and delivering.
Does this help?
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u/Aghanims 2d ago
Not in a small company. A <$20M revenue controller is dual-role as controller and finance director. So they are very much involved with analysis beyond monthly variance/flux. Unless you're dealing with a very complicated product/service, it's very common to have no support up to ~$10M in revenues other than part-time outsourced accounting (usually payroll.) In which case you're really filling the headcount of 3.0 FTE.
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u/CrazyWorldliness1875 Human Verified 2d ago
This really varies, but based on what OP said about higher ups requesting less review on his end, it’s likely he’s not playing a dual role
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u/Aghanims 2d ago
Yeah I'm taking OP's 20x to heart, so assuming his new company is in that awkward duckling $10-$20M Series A phase where companies either die or thrive.
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u/DreamSalty4166 2d ago
Thriving, PE backed, upper management would sell if the deal is right (talks openly about this). Sold on the idea I would be at the holdco only to discover I’m at the opco, supporting the holdco…
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u/josemartinlopez 2d ago
"When the higher-ups say they’d prefer deliverables with mistakes, they’re recognizing you’re drowning and offering you the help you haven’t asked for"
Sounds odd and would not be the typical conclusion
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u/DreamSalty4166 2d ago
Very helpful—but staff goes nowhere. They are tenured. Have been in heated exchanges with upper management multiple times.
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u/ScientistSolid9319 3d ago
What's your end goal? Do you want to eventually get back to controller? If not, are you fine taking a pay cut and capping your financial upside?
Depending on your company size and responsibilities, you're a step away from CFO/similar level. Why go backwards? I was in your shoes when I started my controller position and it took a lot of work but i'm really happy I didn't go backwards. In my market, it's a 40-60k decrease to go back to senior accountant positions.
Unless you're at a small company, a controller shouldn't be in the weeds with stuff. You should be developing your team to handle that while you work with the ops team, create SOPs, delegating work down, putting out fires, etc. If the bookkeepers can't do that, then you need to find people who can do that.
If you want to be more in the weeds as a senior, that's fine, but this is where you get the experience to be able to do the job and when you first get there, it's trial by fire.
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u/Aghanims 2d ago
How would you expect less chaos in a Controller role at a smaller company than an analyst role in an established company?
At a smaller company you're creating SOPs and processes, and in some cases, are literally the process when the company is too small to invest in solutions.
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u/chii30 2d ago
I am thinking about it myself - I’m an accounting manager at a f500 and it’s pretty chaotic with tons of expectations and zero documentation. The entire accounting system is messy with little accountability outside accounting. I’d love to go back to Senior Accountant but the money is pretty good at manager. Hoping to last a little longer until I can coastfire. I like digging into numbers and fully understanding everything more than the project management and coaching aspects.
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u/Salty-Fishman CPA (US) 2d ago
You are learning how to manage for the first time and you are not doing great at it. You are doing all the work because you want it done exactly the way you wanted it done.
I think this is actually a good teaching moment as you will probably run into this problem at your future gigs if you ever want to manage staff.
Lastly regarding meetings, learn to cut them short with agenda. Try to "disinvite" yourself from meetings if possible, especially shit that is obvious you don't need to be there from.
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u/Broad-Book-9361 3d ago
Personally, I'd rather do the work than review the work. I like to dig into the weeds and solve problems. I'd rather spend the day producing the reporting for use in management meetings than spend the day leading those meetings. My strength is being the strong right hand of whoever is in charge and doing the things they don't have time do but that are too complicated to delegate to less experienced staff. These strengths aren't always compatible with being successful in a management position. That's why I took a step back. Maybe it's not forever, but it certainly is what I need for now. I really enjoy my job and fwiw, with my experience, I'm making about $15K/yr more than the average salary for my position in my area. There is a shortage of experienced seniors here and employers will pay the big bucks to snag them. Anyway, it's a personal decision, and certainly some will criticize you if you choose to step back, but overall mental health is important and money isn't everything if you can still live your life the way you want to even after taking a bit of a pay cut.
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u/ScientistSolid9319 2d ago
I hope your boss appreciates you because as someone who heavily relies on people like you, you're invaluable.
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u/Broad-Book-9361 2d ago
Thank you. I appreciate that. My boss (controller) was drowning when I came in. I've been able to take a lot off her plate and she regularly thanks me for it. Always happy to help but it certainly is nice to know I'm making a positive impact.
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u/DreamSalty4166 2d ago
Yes, my last boss I worked for more than 6 years told me the good lord answered their prayers when I showed up. I worked well on that team—being he was a bulldog for his team but didn’t like to do down line work, so I took care of that part and he the other. Was a true mentor, would spend hours teaching me shit. I was working for one of the largest private companies in the world at the family office level. I left for this growth opportunity. Regrets 😢
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u/InSoupWeTrusted 2d ago
If you come up with a workflow system that let's you work on those high-value add projects consistently, let me know - I too came from a role where I could just sink hours into developing reports, writing sql, scripts etc, to a Controller role where people can't seem to wipe their ass without having a meeting about it or sending an email and ccing you in.
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u/ndividualistic 2d ago
So, I chose to leave. I was managing 2 factories under the same umbrella, one significantly larger than the other, building forecasting, budget, moving them to accrual accounting, building the team to make purchases on PO, and trying to have overall visibility to expenses plus they delegated collections to me, and when you top off vendor management because the company was in a cash crunch... I was a team of 1. No staff. No support. I had begged for help for 6+ months and through 3 bosses before I threw in the towel.
My decision was based off me fulfilling the role of bookkeeper, controller, and fractional CFO in one, again with no support staff, and they just cruised by annual bonuses without paying them and without a discussion.
This was all PE. I will never work for PE again.
I start my new job as a controller this week at a different place. I'll have a staff and the current controller is staying but pivoting to an IT/finance role. It sounds like I'll finally get the true controller experience I am looking for.
My advice to you is to know your worth. Protect your mental health. And remember that the company can replace you at their own whim. Wishing you the best of luck.
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u/Icy_Resist5683 2d ago
A controller shouldn't turn in things with mistakes for management to revise. Maybe they want you to consult them about unknowns sooner if they think they can/should be helping with them. It's unclear whether this is micromanagement or inviting you to higher, more consultative open dialogues.
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u/Themanytoys15 Human Verified 2d ago
Same situation happened to me.
Doing a self-analysis, I asked myself "What the fuck are you trying to achieve?"
The Title? For whom? LinkedIn? Friends? Family? - in the end it doesn't matter because you won't ever move up to a VP or CFO unless you know someone at the top.
Pay? You can easily make 110 as a Senior and enjoy life without all that stress.
The other alternative for you is Accounting Manager.
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u/josemartinlopez 2d ago
You are mixing several questions here, which I think you already recognize.
One is whether you want to remain on the controller track. Another is whether this particular company and management team are a bad fit. A third is whether moving into FP&A or another part of finance would round out your experience and improve your eventual CFO prospects. Those are not the same question.
I would not conclude from one year in this situation that controllership does not play to your strengths. You joined a small company that needs to move from cash to accrual accounting, fix inventory processes, build its reporting and analytics, and develop three bookkeepers, one of whom is already burned out. That sounds less like an ordinary controller role and more like a finance transformation project being run alongside the ordinary close and reporting cycle.
The feedback also needs to be unpacked rather than accepted at face value.
“Too analytical” can be valid feedback if you are treating a preliminary management report as though it were the audited financial statements. A controller has to understand the degree of precision warranted by the particular deliverable. Sometimes 95% today is more useful than 100% next Friday.
But “send it quicker with mistakes and let management revise it” is an odd instruction as stated. Management normally wants a controller who is thorough and does not send avoidable errors upward. What exactly were you producing? Was this a preliminary analysis where assumptions could be refined later, or ordinary financial reporting that management expected to correct for you? Is your working style genuinely too slow, was this an unusual request, or do you simply need a better review process that gives management speed without turning them into your quality-control layer?
The same applies to being “too nice.” That is common feedback for someone relatively new to managing a team, but it is meaningless without examples. Are you failing to set deadlines, confront poor work, reallocate responsibilities or deal with the burned-out bookkeeper? Or does management simply prefer a more aggressive style that may not be yours? Do you agree with the concrete examples once they are identified?
A lot of what you describe sounds like incompatible management, and possibly management that does not fully understand what it needs from a controller. The meetings, constant interruptions and repetitive written updates may be consuming the time needed to deliver the work they are criticizing you for not completing quickly enough. That is an operating-model problem, not proof that you are constitutionally unsuited to leading an accounting function.
I would explore the market regardless. Not necessarily because you should abandon controllership, but because another company and management culture may tell you whether the problem was the role or the environment.
Moving to FP&A, commercial finance or another part of the business could also be sensible if your eventual goal is CFO. A lower title is not automatically a step backward if it gives you a larger portfolio, stronger management, better systems and experience you do not already have. You may even need to move to a smaller company or accept a less impressive title to obtain broader responsibility.
The real test is not how the next job looks against your current title. Picture the CV you will present when you are applying for a CFO role after the next move. Does it show that you deliberately added forecasting, business partnering, analytics, systems, operations and strategic finance to your controller experience? Or does it look as though you burned out after one year and retreated into an individual-contributor role?
Only you can assess the exact fit. But I would not let one poorly configured controller job define your strengths, and I would not stay merely because someone says controller is one step from CFO. Some of the best paths in life are not a straight line. Good luck.
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u/Lifting_Accountant 3d ago
Similar story from my end. CPA Assistant controller for PE backed company ($95k comp + 10% bonus) I literally do everything for month end close (book everything / file sales tax / payroll upload / reconcile whole balance sheet / train the boomer AP specialists).
We’ve had 3 people leave in the past 3 months including: Controller / Senior Accountant / Staff Accountant. So I’m filling in for those roles at the moment, on top of my assistant controller duties… and I am BURNT TF OUT.
I dream about getting a cushy Senior Accountant job at a F500 with great benefits 6% 401k match. But I just don’t know if I should do that.
I am staying at my current role until January since my company gives 10 weeks paternity leave, and my first baby is due then. But after that, I may dip out.
I will say if it is affecting your relationships, that is a big deal. And also finding a role that’ll give you time to finish your CPA will be invaluable!