What are the duties of a Cost Controller in a Large Road construction job?

Question

what the basic duties? and qualifications?

Answer 1

Cost Accounting is taking all of the bills, and dividing them up into the accounts the expenses belong in, so that you can compare this amount to budget at different points of completion.  The bills have to be seperated at the end of accounting periods, so that you can tell what all went on before X date... sometimes you are billed for things that happened long ago, sometimes for things that have not happened yet.  These bills are also compared to the contractual basis for the billing, the hours or parts are checked, all of that...

Now on a large job the nuts and bolts of this are usually done by bookkeepers, and the resulting reports are passed on to the cost accountant to see if things are in line.  That accountant then generally checks the period start and ending dates and makes adjustments to the accounts where it is necessary to split a bill between periods.  Other costs you know are happening, but which have not or will not be billed in this period are also adjusted for, as well as stuff like the cost of things being slowly used up, or worn out.  Often the accountant supervises the bokkeepers who perform these tasks, and establishes proceedures for doing these tasks, even sometimes must train some of them to do these tasks...  Then the cost accountant prepares reports from the adjusted ledgers for banks providing financing, or for people to be billed for the job in progress.  

If the job is large enough, then the cost accountants pass these reports to a controller, who audits these reports and combines them, and prepares the documents required as proof of performance to get paid, and goes and gets paid.  In this case the controller usually supervises these accountants, who supervise the bookkeepers.  The controller may also be responsible for negotiating the financing that will allow working capital for the job.

A cost controller usually reports then to an overall controller, along with other controllers of different aspects of the business.  A controller of a large job is often required to be a CPA, and is liable for errors or misrepresentations he might make due to either incompetence or dishonesty, because loans and payments to his company will rely on the accuracy of the reports he produces, and in the case that they are wrong, it may be fraud.

In a small company, cost controller is about half the job of a bookkeeper, and the adjustments are either mapped out in advance by an accounting consultant, or done after the fact at the end of the job, mostly for tax purposes.... In a large company a cost controller might supervise, many people, and it can be an intense managerial and supervisory position, with a lot of responsibility for negotiating the terms of reporting compliance for payments with banks and clients.

Cost Controller may be a glorious title for bookkeeper, but it probably means at least an accountant, and perhaps a CPA will be hired.  If the firm is large enough it may be an MBA, who supervises the CPA or CPA's who produce the reports and supervise all of that.

You need to know the company, as well as the size of the job to know the duties and qualifications of a particular position as 'cost controller'