A new controller inherits balances someone else signed, a close calendar someone else built, and an audit file from before their arrival. A new controller checklist for the first 30 days turns that inheritance into a known position: who does each piece of work, which reconciliations hold, and which numbers have evidence behind them.
Rever comes in once you know the systems and the people. You pick an entity and its systems, your team sets up read-only connections, and the zero-day scan makes the first pass over those records. The scan applies the relevant reconciliations, verifications and controls to the in-scope population and reveals initial findings with the evidence behind them. Missing sources and blocked procedures stay visible. Rever promises no findings in advance, since the results depend on your records.
The new controller checklist, week by week
This plan assumes a company with one ERP, a few bank accounts, a small AP team and an annual audit. Stretch or compress the weeks to fit, and keep the order: people before balances, balances before the close, the close before the scan.
Week one: people, calendar and access
Spend the first week listening. Meet the CFO, the AP and AR leads, whoever runs payroll, and the audit manager. Ask each of them which number they distrust and what went wrong at the last close. Their answers become your list for week two.
Collect the documents your predecessor left:
- The close calendar and the last few close packages, with sign-offs.
- The trial balance and the balance sheet reconciliations behind it.
- The last audit's adjustments and management letter.
- The written approval matrix, or the email that stands in for one.
Request read access to the ERP, the bank portals and the shared close folder. Note who holds administrator rights in the ERP, who can create a vendor, and who can change a vendor's bank details. Compare the written approval matrix with the limits the ERP enforces; a gap between the two belongs on your list.
Week two: the balance sheet
Walk the balance sheet account by account, starting with cash. For each account, find the reconciliation, the preparer, the reviewer and the date of the last review. Look at the reconciling items: their age, their owner, and whether anyone has a plan to clear them. A suspense account with old balances tells you where transactions have nowhere to go.
Then read the journal entries. Pull the manual entries for recent months and check who prepared and who approved each one. An entry with the same name in both places points to a segregation problem. Check that last month's accruals reversed in the opening days of this month, and that recurring accruals still match the invoices that followed them.
Hold this against the auditor's view. The audit readiness checklist lists the schedules and support a financial statement audit asks for, so you can see which ones exist today and which ones someone would have to rebuild.
Week three: one close, observed
Run your first close as an observer, with the month-end close checklist open beside the team's own. Mark the steps that depend on one person, the reconciliations that land on the first day of the close, and the flux comments written from memory. Watch how a late invoice reaches the books, and who decides an accrual.
Look at the controls around payments while the close runs. Ask to see a recent vendor bank-detail change and the verification behind it. Ask how the team catches a bill entered twice.
This is the week to choose the zero-day scan's scope. Pick the entity and the systems you now understand. Your IT lead and ERP administrator will ask what a read-only connection can see and change; the questions to ask before sharing AP data gives them Rever's answers from its trust page.
Week four: the books against the evidence
The zero-day scan is the first pass over your connected records once read-only access is in place. Walk through the findings with Rever: the supported findings, their financial significance, what needs more evidence, and the actions required to pursue value. Give the missing sources and blocked procedures the same attention as the findings, because each one marks a part of the books with no evidence behind it.
End the month with two lists. The first holds the balances and controls you can now support with evidence. The second holds what you cannot yet support, with an owner and a date for each item. Take both to the CFO with your plan for the next two months. The controller's case for Rever describes how the agents can take on the matching, the exceptions and the close preparation after that, with each entry waiting for your approval.
