The accounting pyramid organizes accounting-related job titles into a hierarchy that ranks them by responsibilities and deliverables, with bookkeepers at the bottom, accountants in the middle, and the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at the top.

While it is obvious to most people that bookkeepers are the most entry-level accounting team staff and CFOs are the bosses at the top, there is a lot of confusion in the middle.

​Understanding the difference between a Staff Accountant, Senior Accountant, and Accounting Manager, is something many business professionals (even hiring managers) do not understand.

Many people assume that Staff Accountants and Senior Accountants are individual contributor roles with varying levels of experience and Accounting Managers and Senior Accounting Managers are the people who oversee teams of lower-level accountants. However, that is not a correct understanding of the stratification of roles.

​To further complicate matters, some people use the titles of Senior Accounting Manager and Controller interchangeably, which adds even more confusion.

To provide some clarity on the topic, we will explain what each job title means, how it differs from other adjacent accounting positions, and when you need to hire each role:

Staff Accountant
Explanation of the Role:
A Staff Accountant is an early career accounting role. Staff Accountants typically have a bachelor’s degree in accounting, finance, or business administration and a couple of years of experience in an entry-level accounting role before moving into the position.  
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Responsibilities:
Like bookkeepers, Staff Accountants’ responsibilities include maintaining financial records by doing ledger entries and reconciling bank and credit accounts. In addition to helping keep the books, Staff Accountants also typically provide some measure of AP (Accounts Payables) and AR (Accounts Receivables) support.

They will also be expected to generate regular financial reports, like the balance sheet and profit and loss (P&L) statement.

Filling The Need:
During a corporate reorganization, accounting software change, or audit a Staff Accountant may be asked to provide financial information or generate reports to assist in the process.

Senior Accountant
Explanation of the Role:
A Senior Accountant has additional years of experience over a Staff Accountant and uses their gained expertise to take on additional accounting responsibility with the organization.

Some Senior Accountants are CPAs (Certified Public Accountants) or CMAs (Certified Management Accountants), although this is not a requirement to hold the role.

Responsibilities:
Senior Accountants prepare budgets, conduct risk assessments, and can supervise other accounting staff as well. On top of preparing financial statements, they also help with preparing budgets and analyzing budget variances. Additionally, they maintain fixed asset schedules to keep them up to date.  

Unlike lower-level accountants, Senior Accountants ensure the integrity of the company’s broader accounting information and processes. In the area of internal controls, Senior Accountants conduct risk assessments, evaluations, and reviews to strengthen the company’s accounting controls.
 
Filling The Need:
As an organization grows, accounting management becomes essential. A Senior Accountant can provide an important link between a company’s financial leadership and its team of Staff Accountants. Furthermore, when internal accounting controls need to be implemented or shored up, a Senior Accountant is a critical role.  

Accounting Manager
Explanation of the Role:
As the name would imply, an Accounting Manager oversees a team of accountants. The team they oversee can consist of Staff Accountants or Senior Accountants depending on the organizational structure.  

Accounting Managers typically have a degree in accounting or a related field, some form of higher-level degree, and significant work experience in the specific types of accounting they are managing. 

Responsibilities:
Accounting Managers review and analyze the financial reports and documents that their accounting teams prepare.

In addition to managing the company’s financial information, they also manage a team of employees. An Accounting Manager may hire, train, and oversee a team of accountants performing the day-to-day accounting tasks of running the business or a group of specialty accountants such as public accountants, tax accountants, or auditors. Either way, their primary objective is to convey critical information pertaining to the company’s financial position up the chain to executive leadership while translating organizational direction to the team they manage.

Furthermore, Accounting Managers use their strong communication skills to work cross-functionally with finance and HR to establish accounting priorities, advise on financial decisions, and set strategic corporate goals.  

Filling The Need:
Accounting Managers ensure that accounting staff is well recruited, trained, and developed professionally to meet the company’s short-term and long-term goals, which is crucial for any organization.

During a period of rapid growth, business shift, industry disruption, or changing market landscape, an Accounting Manager is a vital position.  

Senior Accounting Manager/Assistant Controller
Explanation of the Role:
A Senior Accounting Manager will oversee multiple accounting teams within an organization to ensure they are working together effectively.

This is often a hybrid role that acts in an Assistant Controller capacity as well, providing high-level financial support to the Controller.

Responsibilities:
Senior Accounting Managers and Assistant Controllers work to identify and resolve discrepancies found in financial data to improve financial data accuracy. As such, they will often liaise with external auditors, as needed.

Furthermore, larger companies with more sophisticated financial needs may employ a Senior Accounting Manager or Assistant Controller to ensure GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) and in-house best practices are being followed. The same is true of publicly traded companies, which need SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley) oversight as well.

Senior Accounting Managers/Assistant Controllers will deal with governance requirements, compliance, payroll procedures, service level agreements, ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems, and accounting controls.

Filling The Need:
Senior Accounting Managers and Assistant Controllers add another layer of oversight into a corporate structure, which is crucial when the organization has more complicated regulatory and compliance needs.

A Senior Accounting Manager/Assistant Controller can provide key financial direction within a publicly traded entity or a high growth company.

Controller
Explanation of the Role:
As the name would imply, a Controller has control over the breadth of the company’s accounting functions.

​While large companies may have both a Controller and CFO, many smaller and mid-market companies will only have one or the other. In instances where an organization does not have dedicated roles for both, a Controller will perform executive leadership functions.

Responsibilities:
Controllers have the whole array of accounting activities under their purview, namely: budgeting, forecasting, data analysis, debt servicing, regulatory compliance, audits, internal controls, expense management, and tax filings.

Filling The Need:
A Controller provides strategic financial leadership to oversee the accuracy and efficacy of an organization’s accounting functions, making it a critical role for any company whose executive board needs an accounting perspective represented at a high-level.

When you are ready to hire an accountant or controller, look for an accounting recruiting firm with experience in your local market. The ASP Team serves companies spanning a wide variety of industries across the Pacific Northwest looking to hire accounting and finance professionals. Contact us to find out more about how our recruiting team can help your organization find the right professional to fit your accounting role.

Originally published: 7/8/21
Updated: 10/14/26

There is a growing trend that’s wreaking havoc in the hiring market – AI augmented job applications. According to numerous sources, job seekers armed with newly emerging AI tools are now applying to jobs at unprecedented rates. They are using AI to submit mass applications, generate multiple versions of their resume, and even help them answer interview questions. In fact, according to recent data, more than three quarters of job seekers are using AI in the application process, which has resulted in about 3X the number of applications than before.
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And yet, grappling to cope with a huge influx of job applicants to find the right match is not a new topic for hiring managers. Let’s take a look at how we got here and discuss how hiring a recruiter can help you weather the storm! 

A History Lesson
Today’s hiring woes are due to AI, which makes them unique, but the core problem is not. The same type of challenge in response to a major market disruption has challenged recruiters over and over throughout history. Regardless of the form of disruption, the theme is the same – a company struggles to make the right match as they plow through resumes.

Let’s go back to the mid 1990’s, just as the dotcom bubble was building. That is when the first two major internet job boards got started (HotJobs and Monster). Instead of finding a job opening in a newspaper and responding to that ad by mailing a resume and cover letter, with a few clicks on their computer people could now apply for a job. This offered great efficiency for the job seeker, but suddenly HR departments and companies got flooded with applicants. 

Now let’s go back further to the 1970’s when the word processor was invented. By the 1980’s people could modify a resume and a cover letter in minutes, versus needing to take the time to type a new version on a typewriter. A person could type up a cover letter template on their computer and then keep the core themes and add a sentence or two for each job and mail out a tremendous number of cover letters that looked somewhat customized. They could then respond to numerous job applications in approximately the same amount of time that it would have taken to respond to just one job before. HR departments and companies were overwhelmed with more mail for job opening responses than ever before.

In the last few decades, there have been many technological advances that have made it easier for people seeking a job to indicate their interest to a potential employer. AI is just the newest wave of this same trend. So, this idea or theme that HR departments are flooded and overwhelmed is not new. Similarly, their response is not new either!

How Should Businesses Respond?
If it wasn’t clear before that hiring a recruiter could provide significant business value, it should be now!

A recruiting company can help today’s hiring managers and HR staff work through the influx of resumes as well as conduct their own search for the right candidate. The result is that they can often get a better candidate into the role faster than if a business just searches on their own. But this shouldn’t surprise anyone because while the problem of having too many applicants is one that has existed throughout history, the concept of bringing in a knowledgeable person with more experience to help has been as well!

It’s impossible to know exactly when the concept of external recruiting first started officially, but from what we can tell from old business records, recruitment agencies likely date back to the early 1900’s. My hunch is that it likely dates back much further than that, although in a less formal manner. I imagine that even the earliest civilizations had people who knew just the right person for a task, and voila – a match was made! That was probably the first sign of the value of an external recruiter.

Remember, a recruiter is a person who spends their time getting to know people to find out what they are good at and what do they want to do. Then when they hear of the need, they work to make the match. In fact, that’s why recruiters are sometimes colloquially referred to as career matchmakers. An external recruiter can help the company by providing a few key matches while the company is simultaneously searching on their own, sifting through the clutter they have received from their job postings. Plus, in contingent recruiting the company only pays if they hire the person presented by the recruiter. So, there is no cost to have someone send in the ideal candidate while struggling with the overload of incoming resumes!

Our recruiting team has the experience needed to help you find a great match for your open accounting role or finance position. They listen well to learn what the hiring manager needs, and they know their candidates’ skills and strengths. Contact us today to find out how our accounting and finance recruiters can help you find the right candidate for your needs!

Originally published: 3/4/25
Updated: 10/13/26

About The Author
Alex de Soto – Recruiting Practice Leader, CFO Selections

​Alex de Soto anchors the CFO Selections search practice and brings over 30 years of experience in accounting, finance, human resources, and executive search to his role as leader of the search team. Since 2008, he has spent most of his time helping CEOs and CFOs find that unique match they seek in a CFO or Controller.
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He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Compass Health, a large community behavioral health organization serving the five northwest counties of Washington. Alex’s years as a Board member, former CPA and CFO, HR consultant, and recruiter provide a unique combination of experiences enabling successful CFO and Controller placements.

What are we hearing from candidates?
"I’ve been in the interview process with the same company for a long time."
Candidates are reporting that companies are still stretching out their interview process, and their job hunts are prolonged. There is not a sense of urgency, and hiring managers are being cautious, deliberate, and particular. Some job seekers have started new roles and then been contacted about next steps in positions they thought they were no longer being considered for. Turns out the process to fill the role was just very slow, and there was a lack of communication. Prolonged general uncertainty seems to be taking its toll on decision-making.
 
What are we hearing from clients?
"We need to get this hire right."
Making the right hire takes a lot of time, energy, and resources. The sourcing, engaging, and vetting of candidates takes bandwidth that companies do not typically have because they are already running lean. Clients feel a lot of pressure to get the hire right due to time and expense. To have someone not work out and to start the hiring process over is daunting and stressful. This is where we can step in. We offer several varieties of recruiting services and can meet clients where they need to be. Using us as a resource significantly reduces the hiring burdens on an organization and increases their confidence in a successful hire.
 
What am I feeling about the market?
Uncertainty continues
We continue to feel unclear about where the economy is heading. Up and down tariff policies as well as fuel and inflation concerns remain. In September, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported job figures that showed hiring slowing with only 29,000 jobs added, less than what economists had expected. Also, July and August numbers were revised down by a combined 60,000 jobs. September unemployment ticked up slight to 4.2% from 4.1% in August.

ASP Hiring Statistics
42 - Days to Place (avg.)
$160,667 - Avg. Placed Controller Salary
25% - Percent of Diversity Hires
92% - Percent of time we get interviews for our clients​

Recent Placements
Controller – Nonprofit – Portland
Senior Accountant – Nonprofit – Seattle
Accounting Manager – Healthcare – Portland ​

They decide to increase the frequency of bank reconciliations, look for cost cutting opportunities, and search out software that can streamline reporting. But what can get lost is why these cash flow management activities are so important. 

Cash flow is the tie that binds. Everything your accounting and finance teams do is centered around managing the company’s finances to ensure they can:

• Acquire customers
  
• Run daily operations
  
• Pay staff
  
• Meet financial obligations
  
• Make necessary expenditures
  
• Reinvest into the company

Simply put, they ensure that cash will be there today and tomorrow to keep the business going (and hopefully growing as well!). 

​With this in mind, it's important to frame accounting improvements in terms of how they can positively affect cash flow. Let’s take a look at how you can audit some of your most common bookkeeping and accounting activities to look for ways to improve cash flow:

Bank Reconciliations
Doing bank reconciliations more frequently not only deters fraudulent activity and ensures that bookkeeping errors are discovered more quickly, but also aids in cash flow management.

Knowing how much money is currently in the company accounts and how much is in transit provides a better picture of the company’s cash position. As a result, a business can determine if they have the money needed to cover ongoing expenses and strategically time investments and large purchases.

Pricing
Pricing is usually framed in the context of profitability (as in, “How much do we need to charge to cover our expenses and achieve desirable margins?”) but it is also a key cash flow management tool.

Payment terms and prices are crucial ways to maintain cash inflows as products are sold and services are provided. Companies that understand this can use pricing techniques to improve their cash flow management. By adjusting payment terms and offering variable pricing businesses can encourage customers to pay more quickly, thereby increasing cash flow.

These types of adjustments can act as either incentives or as penalties to speed up payments. For instance, a company may offer a percentage discount for customers that pay on NET-15 terms instead of NET-30 terms. Alternatively, a company may offer the same pricing to all customers but penalize late payments with an added fee or require that customers agree to shorter payment terms to be retained as customers.

Customer Invoices
If you do not bill the customer, you cannot get paid. Sending invoices in a timely manner is instrumental in getting paid faster because there will always be a lag between when a service or good is provided and when a bill is sent and then again between when a bill is received and when it is paid. With the rise of credit card usage (even among B2B transactions) this second gap is getting shorter all the time. However, it all hinges on how quickly the invoice is sent. Using a robust accounting software allows your employees to send invoices immediately by automating the process when a product is purchased or a service provider is on site. If you are still batching invoices, you need to modernize your accounting functions.

Vendor Invoices
Your customers need to pay you and you need to pay your vendors, suppliers, and partners for their contributions. But that does not necessarily mean that you need to pay on their terms. If you have a good relationship with your vendors, you can always ask them if they would be willing to budge on their terms. If you have been timely with your payments in the past, they may be willing to work with you on their rates or their payment timeframes.

Negotiating payment terms is a shrewd way to hold onto your money longer. But always be sure to double check revised agreements to make sure there are not any unfavorable clauses or provisions included that could pose problems in the future.  

Expenses
Cost accountants deal with expenses all day every day. They are pros in determining where companies are spending their money and how to do better with the funds that they have available. But even if you do not employ a cost accountant (or hire out the services of a cost accounting consultant), every company can make expenses a priority. Look for places where you can reduce waste and gain efficiency.

In some instances, just changing the timing of expenses is enough to improve cash flow. For instance, delaying capital investments improves cash flow in the short-term so it can better plan for the long-term (especially during times of economic uncertainty).  

Evaluate where cost cutting can occur without having a negative effect on your product/service or customer experience. This may involve outsourcing some activities that you have traditionally done in house. An experienced accountant can help you with a cost-benefit analysis of outsourcing business activities to help you decide what to do yourself and what to hand off to another company to maximize cash flow.

Collections
Develop a formal payment policy, which customers must agree to before doing business with you, so you have recourse when customers do not pay. This is an easy step you can take right now to increase future cash flow.

Then, when you need to pursue collections, lean on the policy for legal recourse. You may not even need to use the policy (just having it is sometimes enough to ward off unscrupulous individuals that are looking for vulnerable businesses) but it will be there for when you do need it.

Companies with formalized payment policies tend to get paid quicker and have fewer transactions written off as uncollectable, both of which can help cash flow significantly.  

Keeping the Books
Having clean books is an important part of managing cash flow. Obviously, it is better to keep your books error-free as you go, but if your books have fallen into disarray due to staff turnover, an accounting approach change, or software migration, someone will need to take the time to clean them up to give you a fresh start moving forward.

Streamlining accounting activities and improving close procedures will help you to get more accurate information more quickly, which in turn improves cash flow management.

​Ensure you are using the right software platform for your needs and that your staff knows how to use it correctly. For companies where non-accounting staff is responsible for bookkeeping and accounting activities, this is incredibly important. As our team explains, “The benefit that a business derives from [accounting software like] QuickBooks is contingent upon what is put in and how much expertise is available to use the tool correctly. QuickBooks will not manage a business’s finances any more than a hammer will build a house without a carpenter there to swinging it.”

When you need help improving cash flow, reach out to us. Our team of experienced accountants can provide a wide range of accounting services to meet your unique needs. We will work with you to get your books in order, put formal policies in place, and audit your ongoing accounting functions to improve your financial position. Contact us today to start a conversation around how we can support your company with our accounting expertise!

Originally published: 2/13/23
Updated: 10/5/26

Internal control accounting systems are the policies and procedures used to ensure accuracy and reliability across accounting reports to:

• Prevent fraud
• Control risk
• Proactively identify financial issues
• Protect resources (both tangible and intangible) from theft and waste
• Operate efficiently
• Generate timely, reliable reporting
• Measure progress towards business objectives and goals
• Comply with applicable laws and regulations
• Secure outside funding
• Reassure investors

Controls can either be preventative, deterring fraud and mistakes, or detective, identifying issues after they have happened. Working in unison they can remedy existing problems and help to avoid future ones to strengthen ongoing business activities.

The most common types of internal accounting controls include:

1. Segregation of Duties
Assigning specific duties to each employee that divides accounting responsibilities is a basic control system to ensure that the people responsible for financial reporting are separate from the people tasked with making cash deposits and asset purchases. Similarly, anyone conducting audits should be as far removed from financial duties as possible to ensure impartiality. The further apart these functions are in an organization, the lower the risk for fraud associated with each.

In small companies where there are not enough employees to separate duties completely, peer review can serve a similar “checks and balances” function to mitigate risk. While complacence and collusion can still result in erroneous reporting, requiring peer sign-off on reports and job functions can eliminate simple opportunistic theft.

Because fraud can occur at any level of an organization separation of duties is crucial at not just the top, among executive leadership, but at every step of the organizational hierarchy. In large organizations, rotating assignments among employees with the same job functions helps to isolate discrepancies and conduct thorough analyses of root causes.

2. Access Controls
Access controls keep people out to keep value in the organization.

Setting permission levels to safeguard data and physical assets is one of the most routine controls businesses use because they are so easy to implement. In password-protected areas, secure passwords and two-step authentication procedures make it difficult for employees to use others’ login credentials. Additionally, changing passwords frequently enables access controls to remain steadfast over time.   

Access logs and usage history reports are automated features that can be used to regularly audit software systems to find discrepancies. They can also serve as evidence in identifying culprits when errors occur, or fraud is present.

Access controls can also be physical in nature allowing for more effective management of tangible assets, such as restricting badge access to employees who should not be allowed in certain areas. Other types of physical access controls include safes for cash or other valuables.

3. Required Approvals
Designating managers to be responsible for transaction authorizations is an internal control function that funnels purchase decisions through the most trusted employees. Authorizations may be required for large payments, unusual expenses, and unexpected cost increases.

In larger organizations required approvals may follow a hierarchy, necessitating multiple layers of agreement before being finalized. The aim with this approach is to weed out unnecessary expenses at every level to minimize waste and reduce incidence of fraud.

4. Asset Audits
Auditing is the most widely used internal accounting control.

Financial audits like cash reconciliations are performed regularly to verify that actual balances match accounting balances. Differences can be analyzed and investigated, where necessary, to result in accurate financial reports.

However, asset audits are not simply electronic in nature – they also include physical audits. Any time a cash drawer is tallied, or raw material counts are verified, an asset audit is being performed. These on-site audits should be performed regularly to ensure financial accuracy. Counting cash should be done hourly or daily, while physical asset tracking is typically done quarterly or annually. Manually counting assets in this manner is crucial because fraud can occur off the books to bypass financial report audits.

In addition to these routine checks, detective asset audits should be performed as well. Utilizing surprise or random cash counts, for instance, helps to keep employees honest and focused on performing work fastidiously.  

5. Templates
Standardizing financial documents creates consistency, which makes it easier during the auditing process. While some reports like a balance sheet or P&L statement have a standard format, other documents can vary substantially between business teams. Creating and using the same templates for estimates, invoices, purchase orders, funding requests, receipts, and expense reports creates comparability across like items during an audit. Streamlining these items is an important internal accounting control that businesses tend to overlook in the rush to implement more obvious control systems.  

6. Trial Balances
Double-entry accounting ensures that the books are always balanced. However, errors and fraud can still exist in a double-entry accounting system, which is why trial balances should be used in conjunction with this method. Trial balances are a form of accounting control that infuse additional reliability into the system by keeping an internal record of credits and debits to allow businesses to identify issues early on.

7. Reconciliations
Bank, supplier statement, and credit card reconciliations can factor into other accounting control systems, however conducting these reconciliations is an internal control in and of itself as well. Understanding which items have cleared, are in-transit, or have not yet posted allows businesses to uncover errors and fraud. Furthermore, performing regular reconciliations informs strategic business decisions and day-to-day operations.

8. Data Backups
Data backups are the most forgotten internal accounting control system. Because accurate financial data requires technological interaction between platforms, loss of financial inputs can skew reporting and muddle audits. When technology fails, past reports and vital data can go missing, delaying reporting and impairing essential accounting functions.

Backing up computer files to the cloud safeguards data from loss when computers become corrupted or servers fail.

Implementing the proper accounting controls is meaningless unless employees are equipped to act when they notice a problem or detect suspicious activity. Formal policies must be created to educate employees on how to respond when issues arise. All employees should know who they can tell when there is suspicion of error or malicious intent and what kind of response to expect. Furthermore, their anonymity needs to be protected after doing so.

​Please contact us if you need assistance with setting up your internal accounting controls.

Originally published: 2/13/20
Updated: 9/25/26

What are we hearing from candidates?
"Lateral is fine with me."
Gone are the days of people changing jobs and expecting a minimum of a 10% increase in salary. White collar wages have stagnated over the past 2 years while blue collar and hour wages have continued to increase. Job-seeking candidates have seemingly accepted this reality and are increasingly open to accepting offers at lateral total compensation (or maybe an increase well below 10%). This signals that people on the move are choosing other motivating factors like company culture, growth opportunity and change in responsibility/industry over pay. 

What are we hearing from clients?
"Let's run in parallel." 
Five years ago I wrote an article titled 'People Aren't Applying to Job Ads Anymore' - that world is long gone! Since then we've gone through an AI-assisted surge where it's now easier than ever for candidates to apply to jobs. Consequently, hiring managers have been (over)relying on job ads to fill roles for a couple of years but are now waking up to the new reality this world creates: the volume of applications does not correlate to quality.

Most hiring managers we speak with now are choosing to use our expert, white glove service alongside the 'post and pray' method. Sifting through AI-generated resumes and quantities of candidates from out of state have them thirsting for an expert service provider to give them exactly what they're asking for quickly. Our recruiting group consists of former Big-4 accounting and finance professionals who have worked the roles we recruit for and understand the right fit. It’s not guesswork for us.

What am I feeling about the market?
School's Back in Session
My kids started school in late August, which means we all had to get our minds in gear for the transition away from summer and back to routine. The latest BLS job market figures have me scratching my head like I'm doing fractions for the first time in 3 months. We had an initial loss in July of 23k jobs and have a gain in August of 162k, which does not seem to align with seasonal expectations.

On top of that we've seen consistent significant reforecasts to a degree we've not seen in the past. Overall job adds continue to be below forecast for the year and yet unemployment continues to decrease. The recent figures from the BLS are leaving me confused - maybe it's summer brain and a math I have not learned yet. I'm glad school is back in session.

Recent Placements
VP of Finance – Retail – Seattle
Senior Accountant – Construction – North Seattle
Controller – Professional Services – Kent

Cost cutting is the benefit most often associated with outsourcing. Subsequently, business leaders looking to reduce expenses may jump at the opportunity to move costly functions to third-party vendors without regard to the numerous ways that outsourcing can be advantageous to other areas of the company.

​However, it is important to recognize that while cost savings may occur, this is not the only benefit of business outsourcing. In fact, cost cutting may not even be the biggest benefit. 

Other long-term benefits include:

• Controlling fixed costs
  
• Pricing stability
  
• Improved revenue growth potential
  
• Increased business agility
  
• Greater access to skilled personnel
  
• Reduced risk
  
• Improved process efficiency

Understanding these broader benefits allows executive leadership to identify which activities should be outsourced.

Cost Control
Cost control is not the same as cost cutting. Cost cutting means reducing spending, while cost control is about spending strategically to get cash where it can achieve business goals and make the biggest difference for the future of the company.

Outsourcing allows your business to control costs by reducing major expenses like labor, equipment, and infrastructure costs to devote more cash to revenue-generating activities. This cost savings provides a means to funnel capital into other areas of your business. Reduced costs also allow businesses to keep their prices lower instead of passing them through to customers, which can fuel sustainable revenue generation as well. Furthermore, outsourcing allows you to convert fixed costs into variable costs, which improves cash flow and makes your business more agile.

The result is accelerated growth, which makes the business more attractive to investors, especially for earlier stage businesses.

Increased Flexibility
Improved agility makes the company more flexible – positioning it to respond to market changes more effectively and capitalize on opportunities when they arise. Agile companies are less likely to be negatively affected during market downturns and more capable of seizing growth prospects.

Accounting is another area where outsourcing can significantly improve flexibility because it allows a company to bring on additional financial expertise for short-term projects or urgent accounting needs. Without needing to search for, hire, and onboard new employees, companies can just hit the ground running.

Access to Advantages
Outsourcing allows smaller businesses to act larger than they are, gaining access to some of the same expertise, networks, opportunities, and economies of scale that bigger companies typically have available to them. Small businesses can gain access to highly skilled professionals that they cannot afford to hire internally. Outsourcing technical areas like accounting and IT gives these businesses access to the same level of experience that bigger companies retain among their in-house staff, allowing them to punch above their weight class.

Additionally, large corporations have legal teams to manage risk, but small businesses often do not. Outsourcing permits third-party providers assume this risk of their behalf, simultaneously reducing their risk level and minimizing compliance costs.

Improved Efficiency
Handling everything in-house drives up costs and reduces overall efficiency, pulling resources away from your core areas. Outsourcing complicated activities with many touchpoints, like third-party logistics, can improve efficiency enough to not only pay for the cost of doing so, but aid in generating revenue elsewhere.

Outsourcing allows for improved process efficiency across key areas like accounting as well, allowing businesses to launch new products/services more quickly and take on more complicated accounts than they would be able to manage otherwise. In this way, outsourcing facilitates and fuels a growth strategy as well.
​
With more and more service companies popping up to provide third-party options, outsourcing is easier than ever before. 

So, which functions should you outsource? Read our Guide to Small Business Outsourcing for more information.

Originally published: 11/10/20
Updated: 9/9/26

I discovered many parts of the HR world matched my interests, so I wanted to be a finance leader who had some real HR knowledge. I pursued an SPHR (Senior Professional in Human Resources) designation, which required studying materials and taking an exam. As time passed, I realized recruiting was the part of HR I really liked because I am a lifetime connector. Fast forward to today and I have spent most of the past 20 years as a recruiter.
​
One topic that is a continual area of consternation within the recruiting world is job titles. Job seekers and hiring companies alike struggle with accounting and finance job titles. I’ll tell you why and what you can do about it when looking for or posting an accounting job:

What’s in a Name?
A standard HR process is making sure job titles make sense for the job a person is holding at a company. The purpose of a job title is to provide a concise and descriptive label that represents a person's role, responsibilities, and level of authority in a company. Job titles provide a common language that facilitates understanding and efficient communication about job roles. Job titles can signify an individual's career progression within an organization. As employees gain experience and expertise, they may be promoted to higher-level positions with more senior job titles, indicating increased responsibilities.

Job titles definitely play a crucial role in attracting qualified candidates during the recruitment process. Clear and appealing titles can capture candidates' interest and help them quickly assess whether the position aligns with their skills and career goals. Additionally, job titles can contribute to employee satisfaction and retention by providing recognition and a sense of professional accomplishment.

Job titles often follow industry standards as well, which enable organizations to benchmark roles and responsibilities against those of other companies. This allows for easier comparison of positions, compensation packages, and career progression across different organizations and sectors. Job titles themselves and overall job title hierarchy are very important in managing compensation.

The Challenges of Job Titles in Accounting
In my 35+ year career in accounting and HR, for small to mid-sized companies I have observed there really is no standard being used for job titles in the accounting department. For example, a person can hold the number one accounting position reporting to an owner and may have the title of Accounting Manager, Controller, Director of Finance, as well as the more common titles people think of – CFO or VP Finance. Thus, one can easily see how confusing it can be for a job seeker to view a job posting or a hiring manager looking at a resume or thinking of how to recruit for the open position.

Advice for Job Seekers
I often hear a candidate say, “I am not going back in title, I only want the next step up”. And because of the general public perception of the hierarchy of job titles, this makes sense. But to be in a Controller or Director role that reports to the VP Finance or a CFO and refuse to consider a job title of Controller that reports to the CEO/owner of a company is fool hardy from a career development standpoint. Similarly, a CFO that reports to a non-owner CEO, and refuses to consider a Controller or Director or VP role that reports to an owner of the company is missing out on the opportunity to learn and understand what it means to work directly for the owner of a business, not the owner’s hired gun (the non-owner CEO). Or you may be a Controller reporting to a General Manager, and there is an Accounting Manager role reporting to an experienced CFO, and you have never reported to a CFO before. Again, to refuse considering a job for the job title, is being short sighted.

My advice is to look beyond the job title, and really dig into the duties and responsibilities. Learn about the hiring manager’s background and role in the company. Learn about who do they know, professionally and personally. The experience you will gain in the new position may be far more important than the job title you have. This means when you see a job posting or are contacted by an external recruiter, don’t make a quick judgment from the posted job title, or the title used by the recruiter in their message. You need to dig beyond your initial thought of the job only from the job title. Do your research and you may find that a sideways or move down in title, may actually be the step up in your career you want.

In terms of how to manage the public perception when you take this role, just expand a description of your title on your LinkedIn profile and resume. Say Controller – reporting to owner, as an example. Then expand on how it is the number one financial position in the company, describe the senior management level type responsibilities you have even though you may have a perceived “lower title”.

Advice for Hiring Managers
Volumes can be (and have been) written on how to use job titles to manage a company and its compensation structure. My thoughts are strictly on the job title in recruiting. The comments I made above for job seekers show the dilemma faced by companies when hiring an accounting employee. You are dealing with people making a quick judgement of your posted position based only on a job title, or what your hired external recruiter may be saying.

Consider the following scenarios: You may have an accounting department of one – the person is your bookkeeper but also preparing your financial statements and working with you as owner when you are meeting with your bank or CPA. You may have an accounting department of a few employees where one is a degreed accountant, and you as the owner have an MBA. You are a whiz at financial analysis, but you don’t want to spend your time building financial models (although you certainly want them available to review). You may have a person with the CFO title, and they are retiring after working for you for 30 years, but all they did was produce very accurate financial statements, worked with the tax CPA, and your company has no debt. Which title should you use when recruiting for each of these positions? It’s a complicated question to say the least!

My answer to is that you may want to use a different title in your recruiting efforts than you use internally. For internal purposes, you need to think about the perception amongst employees as well as outsiders about the role.

For example, if you have an accounting department of one, and 90% of the work really fits in the classic definition of an Accounting Manager, but you have the person take part in management meetings, go with you as CEO or owner to meet with external service providers, then the job title of Accounting Manager is likely not the one to use. You need to use a title with a stronger perception of authority, even if 90% of the work is lower level. Consider using Controller or Director of Finance. Of course, the challenge is using the title of Controller or Director of Finance in recruiting you will attract people that are more expensive and have more business management then you really need. Thus, you may want to post it with the title of Accounting Manager.

These are the most common sticky job title situations I see at companies these days:

• Often a company will want to use the title of CFO when hiring for their top accounting/finance role because they want to make it sound attractive to people. However, if the position does not have responsibility for managing banking relationships, or the owner only works with family members on developing strategic ideas and plans, the CFO you hire will get frustrated pretty quickly and look for a new role.
• The same goes for using a Controller title to “attract good people” when the role really has no responsibility in developing budgets or providing budget vs actual variance analysis. If the role is just closing accurate financial statements, staying in compliance with state and local tax filings, and getting payroll processed, it is really an Accounting Manager.
• Or you could be calling a person a Staff Accountant yet they are doing 90% of the work in closing the monthly financial statements that are being reviewed by a full time or part time CFO. In this case the role should be listed as an Accounting Manager.
• If your CFO spends 90% of their time in their office, working on state and local tax filings, reviewing the weekly check run, getting financial statements put together and sending them to you as an owner with little to no forward looking information, and rarely talks about matters beyond accounting and tax, that role is actually a Controller.

These examples are where the value of using an external recruiter can help you. It is rare to find a small to mid-sized company that has a person with the time and experience to identify qualified finance and accounting professionals and then reach out to them to get them interested in an open position. The dilemmas I have discussed require a lot of work to figure out. You need an experienced accounting recruiter who understands all the roles in an accounting department and can market the role – explain to the person about the title and the responsibilities, so you get what you as an owner want and need at the right salary level.

The ASP Team has accountants recruiting accountants. Our understanding of all the roles played in a finance and accounting department assists us in engaging the right candidate for the position you really need. We are able to explain to the candidate how the position fits within the company’s organizational structure and how it fits into the candidate’s career and personal goals. It is that knowledge that can make a good match, like an Accounting Manager taking a Controller titled role or convincing a VP Finance that the Controller position really is a step up. This is not easy work for an external recruiter, but it is what they do. It is their core area of expertise and by leveraging that expertise, as the hiring manager and/or owner of the business, it provides you with more time to focus on your core duties and give you assurance you will be hiring the right type of accountant for your open position.

When you need a recruiter that specializes in accounting, please reach out to us! We place accountants at all levels every day, so we have a breadth of experience to draw on when it comes to helping organizations decide how to title their open roles and recruit better to find someone that fits their needs. Contact us to find out more today!

Originally published: 7/10/23
Updated: 8/27/26

About the Author
Alex de Soto – Partner, CFO Selections

​Alex de Soto anchors the CFO Selections search practice and brings over 30 years of experience in accounting, finance, human resources, and executive search to his role as leader of the search team.

​Since 2008, he has spent most of his time helping CEOs and CFOs of Pacific Northwest based companies find that unique match they seek in a CFO or Controller.

​Usually, we discuss more specifically focused accounting and bookkeeping topics to share in-depth industry knowledge with our readers. However, today we’re going back to the basics to answer a fundamental question: “What does an accounting services provider do?”

​Simply put, an accounting provider does less than full-time work. This work can be either ongoing part-time work or short-term work (which includes interim engagements and project-based work). What does that entail exactly? 

Of course, experienced accounting services providers, we could probably offer up thousands of words to describe everything our team is capable of doing for the organizations they serve. But, to keep it simple, we’re going to offer an overview of the most common types of work our team of accounting consultants does. (So, we would caution you not to view this list of activities as the full scope of what an accounting company can do, but rather the types of areas where they are most often brought in to have the biggest impact.) With that clarified, let’s get started!

Handling Routine Day-to-Day Work
Accounting companies can handle ongoing bookkeeping tasks or do part-time accounting work at either for-profit companies or nonprofit organizations. This includes the bookkeeping around recording financial transactions as well as accounting tasks like:

• Sending and following up on invoices
• Payroll processing
• Processing expense reimbursements
• Managing vendor contracts
• Preparing financial statements

Typically, an accounting services company is brought in after an organization has lost their bookkeeper or accountant or the organization’s accounting team is at capacity and cannot handle its expanding needs. A part-time accountant or bookkeeper can be brought in for as little as a few hours a month or as much as a few hours a day, freeing up small business owners and other staff to do the activities that they are better equipped to do.

Fixing Problems
If bookkeepers and accountants don’t have enough time to do everything that’s included in their role, errors will occur. This is the number one reason that accounting companies are brought in for short-term engagements. When mistakes are being made, accounting consultants can dig into the organization’s financial records to unwind these issues. They will fix past errors to clean up your books, creating the basis for accurate financial reporting. For leadership that hasn’t seen good financials in months (or ever!) this is critically important to offer increased visibility into the organization so it can be better managed and pave the way for future growth.

Improving Month-End Close
Month-end close is no one’s favorite activity, but when it’s being done inefficiently, it will be far more painful! An accounting company can formalize or fix an organization’s monthly close process as well as create an accounting policies manual to streamline month-end and year-end close procedures, making them easier to complete and more accurate to boot.
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Remember, the most beneficial kind of close procedure is not a one-size-fits-all QuickBooks module-type process, but a set of formal procedures that are customized to an organization’s unique needs.

Any organization with over $2M in annual revenue absolutely needs to have a formalized close process in place. However, 20% of the organizations that bring us in don’t have any form of a documented accounting process that they can utilize at month-end. This is a serious oversight because a close process not only aids in an organization’s ongoing financial management but also helps to mitigate fraud risk in the future. 

​Assisting with Special Projects
When one-off projects arise, accounting services companies can assist in those areas as well. This can include things like internal or external audits as well as compliance/regulatory reporting as required by state or national regulatory authorities, industry guidelines, or contractual obligations from financers/funding sources. In instances such as these accounting providers can be brought in to assist either because they bring an expertise to the role or because they have the kind of availability that the organization’s existing staff does not.

Financial Advising
The best accounting companies will act as advisors as well by helping the leadership team to make sense of the numbers and knowing how to respond to KPI shifts. Regardless of leadership’s financial acumen, having a second set of eyes on the organization’s figures can prove to be extremely beneficial because an outsourced consultant will likely bring a different perspective to the analysis.
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They can also oversee the budgeting process and prepare financial forecasts to make recommendations regarding future investments. Their strategic financial advice will also include offering an informed financial analysis to provide insight into the company’s financial health, identify trends, and assess performance relative to efforts.

When you need an accounting services company to come in and help your organization get back on track (or keep it from going off track to start with) give us a call! Our team of experienced consulting accountants can help in any areas where your team needs bookkeeping or accounting support. We are brought in to get organizations through a variety of difficult situations from cleaning up messy books to accounting systems migrations and everything in between. Contact us today to find out more!

What are we hearing from candidates?
"Not worth the risk."
Many candidates are still holding on to their current roles as they tell us the opportunities coming to them are not worth the risk of making a change in this market. Regardless of their level of satisfaction in their current role, the sentiment seems to be a known environment is better than an unknown environment. This view changes with a significant salary increase, but the salaries offered are not much different from their current earnings and the title is the same. Many candidates feel ready to step into a higher position in order to get the jump in compensation they need to leave their current company, but employers are hesitant to hire them without the previous title and responsibility.

What are we hearing from clients?
"Our accounting team is stretched very thin."
With all the economic uncertainty this year, employers have been hesitant to hire backfills and are making do with their existing teams. This have caused many accounting teams to be stretched very thin. Some employers are getting temporary help while assessing how their business is doing. Once they feel better enough about revenues and/or costs, they are making the backfill hires needed. However, the initiation of the hiring process is occurring later than it has occurred in the past thus extending the hiring cycle. Companies are enduring being with a smaller team for longer. 
  
What are we feeling about the market?
Riding the waves.
The theme of market uncertainty continues for 2026 even as we have entered August. The July jobs report was bad with the US economy unexpectedly losing 23,000 jobs. The government, retail, leisure and hospitality, and financial sectors lost jobs while healthcare, construction, and manufacturing gained jobs this past month. Additionally, prior months job adds were revised downward for June and May. Combined these revisions removed 103,000 jobs, highlighting a slower hiring trend over the past months. Unemployment fell slightly to 4.1% due to a decline in the labor force versus increased hiring. The labor force participation rate edged down to 61.4%, the lowest in 50 years outside of the Covid period.

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