Controller Cover Letter Example

Eleven working days became six at Lakeshore Industrial Group once a daily reconciliation checklist and fixed cut-off dates were in place, and the team now runs that close without me chasing it. A close held to that standard is what I want to build at Georgian Bay Manufacturing as its Controller.

I lead accounting for a $120 million manufacturing group with a team of six, from entries to the board pack. We have received a clean audit opinion in each of the last three years, with no adjustments above $50,000, which lets the board read the pack without second-guessing it. I build the annual budget with six department heads and report variances above 5% each month, so a department head hears about an overspend while it can still be fixed. Tighter credit terms and a weekly overdue review with sales cut days sales outstanding from 58 to 46.

Georgian Bay's move off spreadsheets is the project I most want to lead. In 2023 I moved Lakeshore's group consolidation into Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central without missing a close, and the lesson I would carry over is that the chart of accounts has to be settled before the move, not during it; that is also how you pass the yearly audit cleanly in the year of a system change. Two plants with inventory at both are familiar ground too. At Huron Packaging I ran the close for two plants and introduced standard costing that cut inventory write-offs by 30% in two years, after starting in audit at Ridgeway Chartered Accountants, where I qualified as a CPA in 2015.

Lakeshore's close calendar and cut-off schedule, with the figures removed, could give our first conversation a concrete starting point. Early on I would also want to understand how the two plants count inventory at month end, because a faster close depends on that count more than on any system. What your board finds missing from its pack today is the question I most want to ask.