For companies that have outgrown a bookkeeper
An outsourced controller,
without the full-time hire.
Your bookkeeping is handled, but no one owns the close, the controls, or whether the numbers are right. We drop in a controller layer — close discipline, internal controls, and GAAP oversight — through the Continuous Close Method™, without a $120–150k controller on payroll.
Bookkeeping keeps the lights on. No one owns whether the numbers are right.
01A growing company hires a bookkeeper to record transactions, and for a while that is enough. But a bookkeeper enters the data — no one above them owns the close, reviews the work, sets the controls, or answers whether the books are GAAP-correct. Recording the numbers and standing behind them are two different jobs, and only one of them is being done.
02As you grow, that gap gets expensive. The close has no deadline, so your leadership team runs decisions on stale numbers. No one reviews the bookkeeper’s work, so errors ride for months. There are no documented controls and no segregation of duties, so a lender, an auditor, or a buyer asks a hard question and the whole company scrambles. The fix — a full-time controller — runs $120–150k a year before benefits.
03Debit & Co. drops in the controller layer your company is missing. A senior controller owns the monthly close, reviews the bookkeeper’s work, builds the internal controls, and stands behind the GAAP treatment — all run on the Continuous Close Method, for one monthly fee well below a full-time hire. Your bookkeeper keeps doing what they do well; we own whether the numbers are right.
You’ve outgrown a bookkeeper if…
Most engagements begin with three or more of these eight conditions.
- The monthly close has no real deadline and routinely slips.
Your leadership team decides on numbers that are weeks stale. - No one senior reviews the bookkeeper’s work before it’s final.
Errors ride unchecked for months before anyone catches them. - There are no documented financial controls or written procedures.
When a key person leaves, the process leaves with them. - You can’t fully trust the numbers when you make a real decision.
Every important call carries a quiet margin of doubt.
- There is no monthly management reporting your leadership team can read.
You learn about cash and margin problems after they hit. - GAAP and technical accounting questions go unanswered.
Revenue, accruals, and deferrals are booked on a guess. - An audit, lender, or due-diligence request sends the team scrambling.
Weeks of fire-drill cleanup to produce what should already exist. - The same person records, pays, and reconciles — no segregation of duties.
A single point of failure that hides both error and fraud.
The Financial Clarity™ framework.
Three pillars behind numbers your leadership team can actually run on. Every engagement maps to them.
01
Clean.
Books that reconcile to the dollar and a monthly close on a fixed schedule. Deferred revenue, accruals, prepayments, and intercompany handled correctly — and reviewed before they reach you.
02
Compliant.
Documented internal controls, segregation of duties, and GAAP treatment that holds up. Audit-ready and lender-ready by default — not as a fire drill when someone finally asks.
03
Communicable.
Management reporting your leadership team can act on. Monthly close packet, the metrics that matter, and a clean file an auditor, lender, or buyer can read without translation.
A senior controller owns the work against each pillar, with CFO-level review behind it.
Six controller functions Debit & Co. owns for you.
Every engagement is composed of these six functions — the work a full-time controller would own, run by a senior team for a fraction of the cost.
Monthly Close Ownership
A senior controller owns the close end to end and runs it to a fixed 5–7 day target. The deadline is finally someone’s job — not a date that quietly slips every month while everyone is busy.
Pillar: Clean · Owned by: Controller
Reconciliation & Review
Every account is reconciled on schedule, and the bookkeeper’s work is reviewed by someone senior before it’s final. The check no growing company has in place — the one that catches errors before they compound.
Pillar: Clean · Owned by: Controller
Internal Controls
Documented procedures and real segregation of duties — so no single person records, pays, and reconciles unchecked. The controls auditors and lenders expect, built before anyone asks for them.
Pillar: Compliant · Owned by: Controller
GAAP & Technical Accounting
Revenue recognition, accruals, deferrals, and other judgment calls booked correctly the first time. When a GAAP question comes up, there is finally someone qualified to answer it — and stand behind the answer.
Pillar: Compliant · Owned by: Controller
Management Reporting
A monthly reporting package your leadership team can actually use, delivered on a fixed cadence. Not raw statements on request — the numbers and trends that drive real operating decisions.
Pillar: Communicable · Owned by: Controller
Audit & Lender Support
When an audit, lender, or due-diligence request lands, the file is already in order. Your controller produces what’s asked for and fields the questions — so the request is a hand-off, not a scramble.
Pillar: Communicable · Owned by: Controller
Featured case · B2B SaaS
“We had a bookkeeper, but no one owned the close or the controls. By month 3 we finally had a real monthly close and numbers we could run the company on — and they surfaced $180k in redundant vendor costs we’d carried for years.”
CEO · $22M B2B SaaS Company
$180k
Redundant vendor cost recovered
Month 3
Margin breakthrough
6-day close
Down from 22 days
Where Debit & Co. fits.
Specificity is a service. The list below is honest.
A good fit:
- An established company of roughly 10–80 employees with real operations.
- You have a bookkeeper, but no senior oversight of the close or the work.
- You need a real monthly close, internal controls, and GAAP oversight.
- Your leadership team wants management reporting it can run the company on.
- A full-time controller would help, but isn’t worth a $120–150k salary yet.
Not the right fit:
- You already have an in-house controller or full accounting team.
- Pre-revenue, with no real operations or transactions yet.
- You need only a year-end tax return, not ongoing oversight.
- You want software to buy, not a finance team to own the work.
Common questions, answered.
What does an outsourced controller actually do?
A controller owns whether the numbers are right. We run and own the monthly close, review the bookkeeper’s work, build and enforce internal controls, make the GAAP and technical-accounting calls, and deliver management reporting your leadership team can act on — the senior layer above day-to-day bookkeeping.
Controller vs. bookkeeper vs. CFO — what’s the difference?
A bookkeeper records the transactions. A controller owns the close, the controls, and whether those records are accurate and GAAP-correct. A CFO sets strategy — forecasting, fundraising, capital decisions. Most growing companies have the first and need the second long before they need the third.
Do we still need our existing bookkeeper?
In most cases, yes — and that’s the point. Your bookkeeper keeps recording day-to-day transactions; we sit above them as the controller layer, reviewing the work, owning the close, and standing behind the numbers. If you’d rather we handle bookkeeping too, we can — but we don’t require you to replace what’s working.
How fast can you take over the monthly close?
A short Foundation phase reconciles every account and documents the current state, then your controller takes ownership of the next close — typically within the first month or two. From there the close runs to a fixed 5–7 day schedule every month, with senior review behind it.
How much does an outsourced controller cost?
One predictable monthly fee, scoped to your company’s size and complexity — far less than the fully loaded cost of a full-time controller plus benefits. You get senior controller and CFO-level oversight for a fraction of one salary. We’ll scope it on a discovery call and put a custom proposal in writing within 48 hours.
Ready for Financial Clarity™?
Book a 30-minute discovery call. Tell us your situation, we’ll be honest about fit, and you get a custom proposal in 48 hours.